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THE    MANY    SIDED   ROOSEVELT 


THE 
MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

AN  ANECDOTAL  BIOGRAPHY 

BY 
GEORGE  WILLIAM  DOUGLAS 


It  is  only  through  labour  and 
painful  effort,  by  grim  energy 
and  resolute  courage,  that  we 
move  on  to  better  things. — 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT. 


NEW    YORK 

DODD,    MEAD    AND    COMPANY 
1907 


COPYRIGHT,  1907 
BY  DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY' 

Published  March,  1907 


REFUGING 


C  75  ( 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 


MR.  ROOSEVELT  is  the  kind  of  man  about 
whom  myths  grow  up.  Even  now  there  is  a 
tendency  to  idealise  him,  illustrated  by  the 
remark  of  a  discriminating  lady  to  whom  this 
book  was  read  in  manuscript.  When  I  came 
to  an  instance  of  the  Presidents  unconven 
tional  way  of  doing  things  she  said: 

"I  would  not  put  that  in." 

"Why  not?"  Tasked. 

"Because  I  don't  like  to  think  that  the  man 
who  is  President  of  the  United  States  ever  did 
things  that  way." 

"Why  not,"  I  persisted,  "if  that  is  the  way 
he  did  things?" 

"Oh,  I  know  he  is  just  like  that,"  she  ex 
plained,  "but  I  don't  think  Pd  leave  that  in. 
I  don't  like  it." 

Unless  a  record  of  the  true  man  is  made,  here 


M6G3349 


vi  INTRODUCTORY   NOTE 

and  now,  while  we  know  what  manner  of  man 
he  is,  those  who  come  after  will  know  only 
the  ideal  Roosevelt ;  and  in  a  hundred  years  or 
so  the  men  in  the  libraries  will  be  rummaging 
over  the  documents  to  discover  what  sort  of  a 
man  the  "real  Roosevelt"  was.  The  intimate 
contemporary  history  which  is  now  making 
in  newspapers  and  magazines  and  in  the  gos 
sip  of  acquaintances  is  recorded,  when  recorded 
at  all,  in  such  a  perishable  manner  that  it  will 
have  crumbled  into  dust  by  the  time  the  his 
torian  would  give  all  he  is  worth  to  get  hold 
of  it. 

If  this  book  has  any  excuse  it  lies  in  a  de 
sire  to  preserve  a  portrait  of  the  real  man,  the 
man  whom  his  contemporaries  know,  and  to 
show  him  as  he  behaves  every  day.  It  may 
be  charged  that  it  is  a  flattering  portrait,  as 
little  notice  has  been  taken  of  the  criticisms 
of  partisan  opponents  or  of  the  unpleasant 
tales  told  by  them.  These  have  been  deliber 
ately  omitted,  for  it  was  not  my  purpose  to 
perpetuate  animosities.  Some  of  the  things 


INTRODUCTORY   NOTE  vii 

recorded  may  seem  trivial,  but  they  all  have 
value  in  creating  the  picture.  It  is  the  multi 
tude  of  brush  marks,  none  of  them  significant 
in  itself,  that  makes  a  portrait  on  canvas.  I 
am  persuaded  that  such  a  contemporary  por 
trait  as  is  here  presented  will  be  useful  to  those 
alive  to-day,  and  will  be  of  inestimable  interest 
to  those  who  come  after.  It  is  only  fair  to 
say  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  himself  is  in  no  way 
responsible  for  what  appears,  save  as  he  has 
done  the  things  which  observers  have  noted. 
The  book  has  grown  out  of  the  material  which 
I  began  to  gather  several  years  ago  for  my 
own  information.  As  it  accumulated,  it  oc 
curred  to  me  that  if  the  multitude  of  incidents 
and  remarks  and  impressions  could  be  properly 
arranged  they  would  make  such  a  picture  of 
the  man  as  could  be  obtained  in  no  other  way. 
My  task  has  been  little  more  than  that  of  an 
editor  who  arranges  the  matter  at  his  hand.  I 
have  attempted  to  classify  it  in  such  a  way  as 
to  make,  so  far  as  possible,  a  connected  narra 
tive  ;  but  from  the  nature  of  the  case  the  re- 


viii  INTRODUCTORY   NOTE 

suit  is  not  what  it  would  have  been  had  I  at 
tempted  to  do  more  than  work  a  series  of  anec 
dotes  into  a  mosaic  of  narrative.  Those  who 
wish  more  complete  information  concerning 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  views  of  the  great  public 
questions  with  the  settlement  of  which  he  is 
connected  will  find  it  in  his  published  addresses 
and  messages.  The  wisdom  of  his  policies,  as 
they  must  be  tested  by  time,  is  a  matter  for 
future  historians  to  discuss. 

I  have  been  at  considerable  pains  to  verify 
the  talcs  that  haye  been  told  and  have  had 
correspondence  or  personal  interviews  with 
those  acquainted  with  the  facts  in  nearly  every 
case.  Among  those  to  whom  my  thanks  are 
due  for  their  assistance  in  this  respect  are 
General  Charles  F.  Manderson,  Senator  Henry 
Heitfeld,  H.  H.  Kohlsatt,  Esq.,  Judge  Alton 
B.  Parker,  Baron  Speck  von  Sternburg,  the 
Honourable  St.  Clair  McKelway,  the  Hon 
ourable  S.  N.  D.  North,  the  Honourable 
Rockwood  Hoar,  the  Honourable  Timothy  L. 
Woodruff,  Justin  McCarthy,  Jr.,  Esq.,  Sena- 


INTRODUCTORY   NOTE  ix 

tor  P.  C.  Knox,  Representatives  William  P. 
Hepburn,  John  F.  Lacey,  and  William  C. 
Adamson,  the  Honourable  Jotham  P.  Allds, 
Colonel  William  A.  Gaston,  Judge  O.  J. 
Semmes,  Colonel  J.  R.  Nutting,  William  W. 
Sewall,  J.  A.  Ferris,  Daniel  Velsor,  Ralph 
Smith,  and  many  others. 
January  21,  1907. 


CONTENTS 


I 

THE  NATIONAL  MAN 

1 

II 

THE  DEVELOPING  MAN 

17 

III 

THE  MAN  OF  AMBITIONS 

36 

IV 

THE  WESTERN  MAN 

51. 

V 

THE  STRENUOUS  MAN 

79 

VI 

THE  HUMAN  MAN 

116 

VII 

THE  DEMOCRATIC  MAN 

142 

VIII 

THE  LITERARY  MAN 

170 

IX 

THE  MILITARY  MAN 

185 

X 

THE  POLITICAL  MAN 

207 

XI      THE  POLITICAL  MAN  (concluded)  238 


He  masters  whose  spirit  masters — he  tastes  sweetest 
who  results  sweetest  in  the  long  run. 

The  blood  of  the  brawn  beloved  of  time  is  un- 
constraint. 

In  the  need  of  poems,  philosophy,  politics,  manners, 
engineering,  an  appropriate  native  grand-opera, 
shipcraft,  any  craft,  he  or  she  is  greatest  who 
contributes  the  greatest  original  practical  example. 

***** 
Talk  as  you   like,  he  only  suits  These   States   whose 
manners  favour  the  audacity  and   sublime  turbu 
lence  of  The  States. 

— WALT  WHITMAN,  Chants  Democratic. 


THE  NATIONAL  MAN 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT  is  a  force :  his  enemies 
say  an  erratic  and  irresponsible  force;  his 
friends  insist  that  he  is  a  beneficent  and  in 
spiring  influence.  All,  friends  and  enemies 
alike,  agree  that  he  is  a  force  to  be  reckoned 
with.  It  is  too  early  yet  to  decide  on  the  exact 
nature  of  his  influence  on  his  times.  We  are 
too  near  him  and  all  other  contemporaries  to 
judge  them  accurately.  But  it  is  evident  to 
all  observers  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  very 
human — and  very  fallible,  as  all  men  are — but 
withal,  sincere  and  honest. 

As  he  has  grown  with  the  passing  years  the 
opinion  of  him  held  by  his  contemporaries 
has  changed  in  many  ways.  For  instance, 
one  public  commentator  wrote  of  him  in  June, 
1900,  that  "Roosevelt  is  no  hero  or  genius, 
but  just  a  fine,  brave,  hearty,  honest,  manly 


2        THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

fellow,  trained  in  many  schools  of  life,  abso 
lutely  democratic,  absolutely  American,  ambi 
tious  with  a  high  ambition  and  having  a 
singular  gift  for  inspiring  a  personal  liking 
or  disliking,  as  the  case  may  be.  There  is 
nothing  of  the  dummy  or  wax  figure  about 
him.  You  may  swear  by  him  or  you  may 
swear  at  him,  but  you  can't  be  indifferent 
about  him.  He  owes  almost  as  much  to  his 
enemies  as  to  his  friends.  Newspapers  have 
tried  to  write  him  down.  He  has  been  sneered 
at,  jumped  upon,  anathematised.  He  never 
held  any  but  subordinate  offices  until  he  was 
Governor,  and  yet  by  perseverance,  by  indus 
try,  by  main  pluck  and  essential  energy,  he 
became  a  leading  figure  in  the  public  eye,  a 
man  to  be  reckoned  with.  Reformers  and  ma 
chinists  have  had  their  quarrels  with  him. 
Mugwump  and  unregenerate  fists  have  been 
shaken  in  his  face.  All  the  time  he  has  been 
pegging  away  at  something  worth  doing,  and 
he  has  tried  to  do  it  well,  whether  he  was  writ 
ing  books,  or  legislating  at  Albany,  or  cow- 


THE  NATIONAL  MAN  3 

punching,  hunting  mountain  sheep,  or  spoils 
men,  or  Spaniards." 

In  July,  1904,  the  same  commentator  wrote: 
"If  we  were  rewriting  [the  estimate  just 
quoted]  in  the  light  of  his  subsequent  career, 
we  think  we  should  give  him  credit  for  the  pos 
session  of  somewhat  more  of  that  indefinable 
quality  called  genius." 

Indeed,  many  men  who  tried  to  account  for 
him  began  to  suggest,  in  1904,  that  he  was 
more  than  an  ordinary  man.  If  he  should  be 
called  great  by  future  generations,  they  will 
doubtless  say  that  his  greatness  was  due  to  his 
grasp  of  the  basic  facts  of  life  and  to  his  in 
sistence  on  the  fundamental  virtues  of  con 
duct:  namely,  that  men  must  be  honest  and 
decent,  that  women  must  still  be  proud  of  their 
motherhood,  and  that  both  men  and  women 
should  be  patriotic,  that  is,  should  possess  that 
virtue  which  conserves  the  organised  state  as 
the  maternal  instinct  conserves  the  organised 
family.  His  strength,  it  has  always  seemed  to 
me,  resides  in  the  fact  that  he  stands  with  his 


4        THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

feet  firmly  planted  on  mother  earth,  and  is  not 
ashamed  of  the  old-fashioned  instincts  and 
emotions. 

Of  course,  he  inherited  much  from  his  an 
cestors,  both  of  intellectual  qualities  and  of 
political  traditions.  He  was  born  just  be 
fore  the  Civil  War,  of  a  Northern  father  and  a 
Southern  mother,  each  sympathising  deeply 
with  his  or  her  native  section  of  the  country. 
His  father,  after  whom  he  was  named,  was 
a  public-spirited  New  York  merchant  and 
banker,  who  found  time  outside  of  his  business 
to  interest  himself  in  the  work  of  making  good 
citizens  of  the  children  of  the  poor.  During 
the  war  he  was  influential  in  securing  the  ar 
rangement  for  the  payment  of  the  soldiers  in 
such  a  way  as  to  provide  for  their  families  at 
home.  After  the  war,  when  President  Hayes 
was  reforming  the  abuses  in  the  New  York 
custom-house,  and  was  saying  that  the  whole 
nation  was  interested  in  the  businesslike  con 
duct  of  the  collector's  office,  he  selected  Theo 
dore  Roosevelt,  Sr.,  as  the  ideal  business  man 


THE  NATIONAL  MAN  5 

for  collector.  He  believed  that  Mr.  Roosevelt 
would  transform  the  office  from  a  political 
clearing-house  for  the  New  York  "machine" 
into  a  place  for  the  honest  collection  of  the 
revenues.  Senator  Roscoe  Conkling,  however, 
succeeded  in  preventing  the  confirmation  of 
the  nomination  by  the  Senate. 

Nicholas  J.  Roosevelt,  who,  in  1811,  built 
and  navigated  the  New  Orleans,  the  first  steam 
boat  to  go  down  the  Mississippi  River  from 
Pittsburg  to  New  Orleans,  was  the  great-uncle 
of  the  present  Theodore  Roosevelt.  This 
great-uncle  shares  with  Robert  Fulton  the 
honour  of  developing  the  steamboat. 

The  Roosevelt  family,  originally  Dutch,  is 
one  of  the  oldest  in  the  country.  The  first 
Roosevelt  came  here  in  1652,  and  his  descend 
ants  married  the  descendants  of  other  immi 
grants  till  the  family  became  typically  Ameri 
can.  Of  this  matter  the  President  once  wrote 
to  one  of  his  correspondents :  "I  myself  repre 
sent  an  instance  of  the  fusion  of  several  dif 
ferent  race  stocks,  my  blood  being  most 


6        THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

largely  Lowland  Scotch ;  next  to  that  Dutch, 
with  a  strain  of  French  Huguenot  and  of 
Gaelic,  my  ancestors  having  been  here  for  the 
most  part  for  two  centuries.  My  Dutch  fore 
bears  kept  their  blood  practically  unmixed 
until  the  days  of  my  grandfather — that  is,  for 
a  century  and  a  half;  and  his  father  was  the 
first  in  the  line  to  use  English  as  the  invariable 
home  tongue." 

Mr.  Roosevelt's  mother  was  Martha  Bullock, 
of  Roswell,  Georgia,  whose  family  has  been 
identified  with  the  interests  of  the  South  for 
generations.  His  mother's  brother  was  Cap 
tain  James  D.  Bullock,  who  enlisted  in  the 
navy  in  1840  and  rose  to  the  rank  of  lieuten 
ant.  He  resigned  to  enter  the  mercantile  ser 
vice  with  the  Cromwell  Steamship  Company, 
running  a  line  of  boats  between  New  York  and 
New  Orleans.  During  the  greater  part  of  the 
Civil  War  he  was  one  of  the  most  trusted  finan 
cial  agents  of  the  Confederacy  in  Europe. 
When  he  died,  in  January,  1901,  it  was  said  of 
him  by  an  acquaintance :  "Self -reverence,  self- 


THE  NATIONAL  MAN  7 

knowledge,  self-control,  were  the  three  pillars 
which  supported  his  life,  and  as  an  object- 
lesson  in  morals  and  devotion  to  duty  his  life 
cannot  be  too  often  reviewed,  nor  can  his  ex 
ample  be  too  closely  copied  by  the  youth." 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  own  opinion  of  his  kinsman 
was  expressed  in  a  letter  acknowledging  the 
receipt  of  a  newspaper  containing  an  account 
of  his  death.  He  wrote : 

THE  VICE-PRESIDENT'S  CHAMBER, 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 
OYSTER  BAY,  N.  Y.,  May  31,  1901. 
S.  A.  Cunningham,  Esq.,  Nashville,  Tenn. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  CUNNINGHAM:  I  thank  you 
very  much  for  sending  me  the  copies  of  the 
Confederate  Veteran.  My  uncle,  Captain  Bul 
lock,  always  struck  me  as  the  nearest  approach 
to  Colonel  Newcome  of  any  man  I  ever  met  in 
actual  life. 

With  great  regard,  sincerely  yours, 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT. 

At  the  time  of  his  visit  to  his  mother's  home 
in  Roswell,  on  October  20,  1905,  he  re 
ferred  to  this  uncle  again  in  an  address  to 


8        THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

the  townsfolk  who  had  gathered  to  greet  him. 
He  spoke  to  them  as  "friends  whom  it  is  hard 
for  me  not  to  call  my  neighbours,  for  I  feel  as 
if  you  were."  Then  he  described  how  his 
mother  had  made  him  familiar  with  the  place 
and  its  history  and  continued : 

"It  has  been  my  very  great  fortune  to  have 
the  right  to  claim  that  my  blood  is  half  South 
ern  and  half  Northern,  and  I  would  deny  the 
right  of  any  man  here  to  feel  greater  pride  in 
the  deeds  of  every  Southerner  than  I  feel.  Of 
the  children,  the  brothers  and  sisters  of  my 
mother  who  were  born  and  brought  up  in  that 
house  on  the  hill  there,  my  two  uncles  after 
ward  entered  the  Confederate  service  and 
served  in  the  Confederate  navy.  One,  the 
younger  man,  served  on  the  Alabama  as  the 
youngest  officer  aboard  her.  He  was  captain 
of  one  of  her  broadside  thirty-two  pounders  in 
her  final  fight,  and  when  at  the  very  end  the 
Alabama  was  sinking  and  the  Kearsarge 
passed  under  stern  and  came  along  the  side 
that  had  not  been  engaged  hitherto,  my  uncle, 


THE  NATIONAL  MAN  9 

Irving  Bullock,  shifted  his  gun  from  one  side 
to  the  other  and  fired  the  last  two  shots  fired 
from  the  Alabama.  James  Dunwoody  Bul 
lock  was  an  admiral  in  the  Confederate  ser 
vice.  Of  all  the  people  whom  I  have  ever  met 
he  was  the  one  that  came  nearest  to  that  beau 
tiful  creation  of  Thackeray — Colonel  New- 
come.  Men  and  women,  don't  you  think  that 
I  have  the  ancestral  right  to  claim  a  proud 
kinship  with  those  who  showed  their  devotion 
to  duty  as  they  saw  the  duty,  whether  they 
wore  the  grey  or  whether  they  wore  the  blue? 
All  Americans, who  are  worthy  the  name  feel 
an  equal  pride  in  the  valour  of  those  who 
fought  on  one  side  or  the  other,  provided 
only  that  each  did  with  all  his  strength  and 
soul  and  mind  his  duty  as  it  was  given  him  to 
see  his  duty." 

On  this  same  trip  to  the  South  the  President's 
train  stopped  at  Charlotte,  North  Carolina. 
A  committee  of  ladies,  headed  by  Mrs.  T.  J. 
Jackson,  the  widow  of  "Stonewall"  Jackson, 
was  present  at  the  station  to  greet  Mrs.  Roose- 


10      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

velt.     When  the  President  was  introduced  to 
Mrs.  Jackson  he  exclaimed: 

"What !  The  widow  of  the  great  Stonewall 
Jackson?  Why,  it  is  worth  the  whole  trip 
down  here  to  have  a  chance  to  shake  your 
hand." 

He  reminded  her  that  he  had  appointed  her 
grandson,  Jackson  Christian,  to  a  cadetship 
in  the  Military  Academy  at  West  Point,  re 
marking  as  he  did  so,  "He  is  a  mighty  fine 
fellow,  Mrs.  Jackson,  a  mighty  fine  fellow." 

And  Mrs.  Jackson,  in  speaking  of  the  matter 
later,  was  as  enthusiastic  in  referring  to  the 
President  as  he  had  been  in  speaking  of  her 
husband. 

The  sympathy  of  the  South  with  him  was 
shown  still  further  at  this  time  when  the  Presi 
dent's  train  reached  Mobile,  Alabama.  It  is 
estimated  that  forty  thousand  people  gath 
ered  in  Bienville  Square  to  greet  him.  In 
their  behalf  Judge  Oliver  J.  Semmes,  son  of 
the  Confederate  Admiral  Raphael  Semmes, 
presented  him  with  a  souvenir  badge. 


THE  NATIONAL  MAN  11 

"We,  proud  citizens  of  a  proud  Republic," 
said  Judge  Semmes,  "feel  and  believe  that  you, 
as  the  head  of  that  Republic,  will  by  your 
broad  views  and  judicious  actions  so  unite  in 
bonds  of  friendship  all  sections  of  our  beloved 
country  that  Americans  will  advance  till  they 
become  the  foremost  of  nations  and  may  with 
out  misgiving  defy  a  world  in  arms.  Should 
this  awful  necessity  ever  arise,  then  the  sons 
of  the  South  will  be  found  a  mighty  armed 
camp.  Take  this  little  reminder,  and  when 
you  look  upon  it  amid  your  arduous  and  mul 
tifarious  duties,  feel  and  know  that  the  people 
of  Mobile  have  buried  the  past  and  look  with 
out  fear  to  the  future,  recognising  that  you, 
as  is  shown  by  your  later  utterances,  are 
President  of  the  North  and  South,  our  whole 
country." 

The  Confederate  veterans  in  the  city  had  ob 
jected  to  taking  any  part  in  the  welcome 
to  Mr.  Roosevelt.  The  Judge  had  urged 
that  they  forget  the  past  and  unite  with  the 
other  citizens. 


U      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

"If  any  one  among  you  have  cause  to  feel 
any  bitterness  I  ought  to  be  among  that 
class,"  said  he,  "as  the  people  of  the  North 
and  the  Northern  press  commonly  spoke  of 
my  father  as  a  pirate." 

Mr.  Roosevelt's  mother  was  an  enthusiastic 
Southern  woman,  who  was  as  devoted  to  the 
Southern  cause  as  her  brothers  had  been.  Not 
long  after  the  close  of  the  war  she  visited  her 
old  home,  and  was  welcomed  by  her  friends 
in  Savannah,  who  were  aware  of  the  diffi 
cult  position  which  she  had  occupied  in  the 
North  during  the  conflict.  There  is  a  story 
current  in  Savannah  about  the  way  she  dis 
played  the  Confederate  flag  in  New  York  un 
der  trying  circumstances.  It  is  said  that  she 
told  it  herself  while  on  her  visit  South.  The 
story  runs  that  just  before  the  surrender  at 
Appomattox  the  city  of  New  York  was  aflame 
with  patriotism,  which  found  expression  in  de 
nunciation  of  the  South  for  prolonging  the 
conflict.  Ordinary  Southern  sympathisers 
took  care  that  their  opinions  should  not  be 


THE.NATIONAL  MAN  13 

expressed  freely  in  any  promiscuous  com 
pany.  Just  about  that  time  Mr.  Roosevelt 
decided  that  his  house  should  be  decorated 
with  flags  in  honour  of  some  social  function  of 
importance.  The  Stars  and  Stripes  were  to 
be  hung  from  every  window.  When  Mrs. 
Roosevelt's  room  was  reached  she  refused  to 
allow  the  flag  to  be  displayed  there.  As  the 
decorators  left  the  room  she  got  from  a  drawer 
in  her  bureau  the  Stars  and  Bars  of  the  Con 
federacy  and  flung  it  to  the  breeze  from  her 
window.  People  passing  on  the  street  at  once 
stopped  to  look  at  the  unusual  spectacle,  and  a 
crowd  soon  gathered.  It  attracted  the  atten 
tion  of  her  husband,  and  he  went  to  the  door  to 
see  what  had  occasioned  it.  Then  for  the  first 
time  he  discovered  what  his  wife  had  done. 
He  went  to  her  room  and  made  an  unsuccess 
ful  attempt  to  persuade  her  to  take  in  the  flag. 
They  say  that  the  crowd  threatened  the  house, 
but  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  persuaded  it  to  respect 
his  wife's  feelings  and  to  disperse. 
Thus  the  present  Theodore  Roosevelt  has  in- 


14       THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

herited  an  appreciation  of  the  feelings  of  both 
sections  of  the  country.  This  has  made  it 
easier  for  him  to  take  a  broadly  national  view 
than  it  would  have  been  had  he  come  from 
stock  entirely  Northern  or  wholly  Southern. 
He  frequently  speaks  of  his  love  for  the  South, 
and  when  he  was  younger  than  he  is  now  he 
resented  an  attack  upon  the  honesty  of  motive 
of  the  Southerners. 

They  tell  a  story  in  Texas  of  how  he  rebuked 
a  noisy  traducer  of  the  South  in  Washing 
ton,  soon  after  President  Harrison  appointed 
him  to  the  Civil  Service  Commission.  He  was 
in  a  company  of  men  one  evening  when  one 
of  them  referred  contemptuously  to  the  South 
ern  people  as  traitors.  Mr.  Roosevelt  remon 
strated  mildly.  But  the  man  insisted  that  the 
people  in  the  South  were  traitors.  Again  Mr. 
Roosevelt  protested,  saying  that  his  mother  was 
a  Southern  woman  and  that  many  of  his  kins 
men  had  engaged  in  the  war  on  the  Southern 
side,  and  that  under  the  circumstances  the 
word  "traitor"  was  offensive  to  him.  The  man 


THE  NATIONAL  MAN  15 

failed  to  note  the  expression  on  the  young  Civil 
Service  Commissioner's  face,  and  used  the 
offending  word  a  third  time.  Thereupon,  ac 
cording  to  the  story  as  it  is  told,  Mr.  Roose 
velt's  right  fist  shot  out  straight  from  the 
shoulder,  and  hit  the  jaw  of  the  other  man 
with  terrific  force.  He  talked  no  more  about 
traitors  that  night  in  Mr.  Roosevelt's  pres 
ence. 

His  inheritance  from  his  mother  led  him  to 
defend  the  South.  His  inheritance  from  his 
father  is  responsible  for  the  high  opinion  in 
which  he  has  always  held  the  soldiers  who 
fought  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union. 
And  it  was  his  Northern  heritage,  together 
with  his  contempt  for  self-seeking  politicians, 
which  stirred  him  to  write  a  letter  of  protest, 
in  1895,  against  the  selection  of  what  he  re 
garded  as  an  unworthy  man  to  speak  at  a 
Memorial  Day  celebration  in  that  year.  In 
the  course  of  that  letter  he  said :  "By  the  way, 
will  you  permit  me  to  ask  how  it  happened 
that  Senator  was  invited  to  deliver  the 


16      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

address  before  the  G.  A.  R.,  here  in  New  York 
on  Commemoration  Day  ?  Senator  -  — 's  con 
duct  in  the  Legislature  has  been  such  as  to 
make  those  of  us  who  are  interested  in  decent 
politics  feel  that  his  figuring  as  an  orator  is  a 
deep  discredit  to  any  organisation,  and  that 
an  organisation  such  as  the  G.  A.  R.,  of  which 
all  good  citizens  are  proud,  should  be  particu 
larly  careful  about  the  guests  whom  it 
honours." 

The  antebellum  marriage  of  a  Northerner 
and  a  Southerner  produced  a  son  with  national 
sympathies  reaching  from  Canada  to  the  Gulf. 


THE    DEVELOPING    MAN 

WHEN  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  a  small  boy  in  short 
trousers  he  used  to  play  tag  in  Madison 
Square,  New  York,  which  was  not  far  from 
his  home  in  East  Twentieth  Street.  It  was  then 
a  much  more  suitable  place  for  a  small  boy  to 
play  in  than  it  is  now.  On  the  east  side  oC 
the  square  stood  a  Presbyterian  church.  The 
sexton,  while  airing  the  building  one  Saturday, 
noticed  a  boy — it  was  the  youthful  Roosevelt 
— peering  curiously  in  at  the  door,  but  mak 
ing  no  move  to  enter.  The  sexton  invited  the 
boy  inside. 

"No,  thank  you,"  the  little  fellow  replied. 
Then  he  added  confidentially,  "I  know  what 
you've  got  in  there." 

"I  haven't  anything  that  little  boys  may  not 
see.  You'd  better  come  in  and  look  around." 

"I'd  rather  not,"  said  he,   after  casting  a 


18      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

sweeping  and  somewhat  apprehensive  glance 
around  the  pews  and  galleries.  Then  he  ran 
off  to  his  play  again. 

The  open  church  seemed  to  fascinate  him, 
however,  and  he  returned  to  it  again  and 
again.  When  he  went  home  his  mother  asked 
him  about  his  play,  and  he  told  her  that  the 
sexton  wanted  him  to  go  into  the  church,  but 
that  he  kept  out. 

"Why  didn't  you  go  in?"  she  asked.  "It  is  a 
church,  it  is  true,  but  there  is  no  harm  in  en 
tering  it  quietly  and  looking  around." 

He  seemed  reluctant  to  explain,  but  after  a 
little  urging  he  shyly  confessed  that  he  was 
afraid  lest  the  "zeal"  should  jump  out  at  him 
from  behind  a  pew  or  from  the  gallery  or  some 
other  place  of  concealment. 

"The  zeal  ?  What  do  you  mean  by  the  zeal  ?" 
his  mother  inquired. 

"Why,"  the  boy  explained,  "I  suppose  it  is 
some  big  animal  like  a  dragon  or  an  alli 
gator.  I  went  there  to  church  last  Sunday 
with  Uncle  R.,  and  I  heard  the  minister  read 


THE  DEVELOPING  MAN  19 

from  the  Bible  about  the  zeal,  and  it  made 
me  afraid." 

Mrs.  Roosevelt  got  the  Concordance  and 
read  the  texts  containing  the  word  "zeal," 
one  after  another.  Suddenly  the  child's  eyes 
grew  big  and  his  voice  excited,  as  he  ex 
claimed  : 

"That's  it— the  last  you  read." 

It  was  from  the  Psalms :  "For  the  zeal  of  thy 
house  hath  eaten  me  up." 

His  youthful  amusements  were  not  confined 
to  playing  in  Madison  Square  or  to  dodging 
"zeal."  Indeed,  when  he  discovered  what  zeal 
meant  he  seems  to  have  decided  that  he  be 
lieved  in  it,  and,  that  he  might  not  be  charged 
with  plagiarising  the  Scriptures,  he  decided  to 
call  it  strenuosity.  According  to  a  Philadel- 
phian  who  went  across  the  ocean  with  him  as 
a  boy  in  1869,  however  zealous  he  might  be, 
he  did  not  believe  in  wasting  his  energies. 

"One  of  the  first  things  I  remember  about  the 
voyage,"  says  the  Philadelphian,  "was  that 
after  the  ship  got  out  of  sight  of  land  Theo- 


20       THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

dorc  remarked  that  there  ought  to  be  a  good 
many  fish  in  the  water.  Then  an  idea  sud 
denly  struck  him,  and  turning  to  me,  he  said : 

"  'Go  get  a  small  rope  somewhere  and  we'll 
play  a  fishing  game.' 

"I  went  after  the  line,  and  while  I  was  gone 
he  thought  out  all  the  details  of  the  game,  and 
had  climbed  on  top  of  a  coiled  cable,  for  he 
was  to  be  the  fisherman. 

"  'Now,'  said  he,  as  I  handed  him  the  line, 
'all  you  fellows  lie  down  flat  on  the  deck  here, 
and  make  believe  swim  around  like  fishes.  I'll 
throw  one  end  of  the  line  down  to  you,  and  the 
first  fellow  that  catches  hold  of  it  is  a  fish  that 
has  bit  my  hook.  He  must  pull  as  hard  as  he 
can,  and  if  he  pulls  me  down  off  this  coil  of 
rope,  why  then  he  will  be  the  fisherman  and  I 
will  be  the  fish.  But  if  he  lets  go,  or  I  pull 
him  up  here  off  the  deck,  why  I  will  still  be 
the  fisherman.  The  game  is  to  see  how  many 
fish  each  of  us  can  land  up  here.  The  one 
that  catches  the  most  fish  wins.' 

"The    rest    of    us    lay    down    flat    on    our 


THE  DEVELOPING  MAN  21 

stomachs,  and  made  believe  swim,  and  Theo 
dore,  standing  above  us  on  the  coiled  cable, 
threw  down  one  end  of  the  rope.  My  brother 
was  the  first  fish  to  bite.  Then  began  a  mighty 
struggle.  It  would  seem  to  be  much  easier  for 
the  fish  to  pull  the  fisherman  down  than  for  the 
fisherman  to  haul  up  the  dead  weight  of  a 
heavy  boy  lying  flat  on  the  deck  below  him. 
My  brother  held  on  to  the  rope  with  both 
hands  and  wrapped  his  legs  around  it  grape 
vine  fashion.  Theodore  braced  his  feet  on  the 
coiled  cable,  stiffened  his  back  and  held  on, 
but  did  not  pull  much.  Of  course  the  fish 
pulled  hard.  He  rolled  over  on  his  back,  pull 
ing  and  twisting,  just  as  Theodore  hoped  he 
would  do.  You  see,  all  this  time,  while  my 
brother  was  using  his  strength,  Theodore 
simply  stood  still  and  let  him  tire  himself  out. 
Before  long  the  fish  was  so  out  of  breath  that 
he  could  not  pull  any  longer.  Besides,  the 
rope  cut  his  hands  and  made  them  sore.  Then 
the  fisherman  began  slowly  and  steadily  to 
pull  on  the  line,  and  in  a  very  few  minutes  he 


2-2      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

had  my  brother  up  beside  him  on  the  coil  of 
cable." 

A  large  part  of  his  youth  was  spent  at  Oyster 
Bay,  where  his  permanent  home  now  is,  and 
the  people  there  have  many  recollections  of  his 
active  boyhood.  It  would  be  difficult  for  one 
to  decide,  perhaps  even  for  the  people  them 
selves  to  tell,  how  much  of  their  remembrance 
of  his  doings  there  is  affected  by  their  desire 
to  recall  something  which  gave  promise  of  fu 
ture  achievement.  At  any  rate,  the  tales  they 
tell  disclose  characteristics  of  perseverance 
and  determination,  which  must  have  mani 
fested  themselves  early.  An  incident  described 
by  Daniel  Velsor  is  typical  of  many. 

Mr.  Velsor  was  working  on  the  bar  that  sep 
arates  Oyster  Bay  harbor  from  Long  Island 
Sound  one  day  in  1873,  when  young  Roose 
velt,  in  a  blue  swimming  suit,  with  the  arms 
cut  off  at  the  shoulders,  came  up  along  the 
beach  in  a  small  boat.  The  wind  was  blow 
ing  and  the  waves  were  smacking  against  the 
small  craft,  sending  the  spray  all  over  the  boy. 


THE  DEVELOPING  MAN  23 

He  asked  Mr.  Velsor  to  help  him  across  the 
bar  into  the  sound,  as  he  wished  to  row  around 
Center  Island.  Mr.  Velsor  advised  him  not  to 
attempt  to  go  outside,  as  the  sound  was  rough 
and  a  storm  was  threatening. 

"And  if  anything  should  happen  to  you  out 
there,  I  should  be  to  blame  if  I  helped  you,"  he 
concluded. 

"All  right,"  the  boy  replied,  "if  you  won't 
help  me  I'll  have  to  do  it  myself." 

He  ran  the  bow  of  the  boat  up  on  the  sand, 
jumped  out,  and  began  to  haul  it  along,  dig 
ging  his  bare  feet  into  the  ground  to  get  a 
better  purchase.  At  each  pull  the  boat  would 
move  a  foot  or  two.  When  the  boat  was  about 
half  way  across  Mr.  Velsor  decided  that  it 
would  be  better  to  save  the  boy's  strength,  as 
he  seemed  determined  to  go  anyway,  so  he 
helped  him  for  the  rest  of  the  way. 

Young  Roosevelt  then  tried  to  launch  the 
boat,  but  the  waves  were  so  high  that  he  was 
spilled  out  the  first  time,  and  both  boat  and 
boy  were  driven  back  ashore.  The  second  at- 


24      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

tempt  was  no  more  successful  than  the  first, 
but  the  third  time  he  succeeded.  The  boat 
went  out  of  sight  in  the  trough  of  the  waves, 
reappearing  on  their  crest,  but  the  boy  man 
aged  to  keep  it  head  on.  Mr.  Velsor  watched 
him  till  he  was  convinced  that  young  Roosevelt 
was  able  to  take  care  of  himself.  Then  he 
went  back  to  his  work. 

The  boy  was  not  drowned,  but  by  all  the  rules 
of  amateur  seamanship  he  ought  to  have  been. 
Besides  boating  at  Oyster  Bay,  he  studied 
botany  in  the  fields  and  hunted  such  small 
game  as  was  to  be  found  there.  He  began 
hunting  larger  game  in  these  days,  too.  He 
has  written  that  his  "first  attempt  at  big-game 
shooting  when  a  boy  was  'jacking'  for  deer  in 
the  Adirondacks  on  a  pond  or  small  lake  sur 
rounded  by  the  grand  Northern  forests  of 
birch,  beech,  pine,  spruce  and  fir.  I  killed  a 
spike  buck,  and  while  I  have  never  been  will 
ing  to  kill  another  in  this  manner,  I  cannot  say 
that  I  regret  having  once  had  the  experience. 
The  ride  over  the  glossy,  black  water,  the 


THE  DEVELOPING  MAN  25 

witchcraft  of  such  silent  progress  through 
the  mystery  of  the  night  cannot  but  impress 
one."  It  was  the  kind  of  an  experience  to  ap 
peal  to  an  imaginative  youth. 

He  survived  many  other  adventures,  and 
went  to  college,  entering  Harvard  University 
in  the  class  of  1880,  not  a  very  strong  youth, 
but  with  an  unusual  amount  of  energy.  We 
hear  of  him,  in  1877,  as  one  of  twelve  mem 
bers  of  the  sophomore  class  "prominently  men 
tioned,"  as  the  politicians  say,  for  the  editorial 
board  of  the  Harvard  Advocate.  A  commit 
tee  was  appointed  to  inquire  into  the  fitness 
of  the  men  for  the  places,  that  the  board  might 
vote  with  intelligence.  When  the  editors  came 
together  to  hear  the  reports,  the  man  who  had 
looked  into  the  qualifications  of  young  Roose 
velt  said : 

"I  cannot  see  that  he  is  the  kind  of  man  we 
want.  Although  I  find  that  he  is  a  thoroughly 
good  fellow  and  much  liked  by  his  classmates, 
I  do  not  believe  that  he  has  much  literary  in 
terest.  He  spends  his  spare  time  clipping  off 


26      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

pieces  of  rock  and  examining  strata,  catching 
butterflies  and  bugs,  and  would,  I  think,  be 
better  suited  for  a  scientific  society  than  for 
us." 

The  board  sustained  this  view,  and  instead  of 
Roosevelt,  elected  a  man  who  has  since  won 
considerable  fame  as  a  writer  of  fiction.  Later 
in  his  course,  however,  Mr.  Roosevelt  was 
elected  to  the  board,  but  did  little  editorial 
work. 

Further  evidence  of  his  early  bent  comes 
from  Mr.  William  W.  Sewall,  of  Island  Falls, 
Maine,  who  later  wrent  West  with  him  to  his 
ranch  on  the  Little  Missouri  River,  in  Dakota 
Territory.  While  still  a  student  he  was  sent 
into  the  Maine  woods  in  charge  of  Sewall,  who 
was  told  that  "he  was  a  young  college  student, 
out  of  health,  but  gritty  and  headstrong." 
Sewall  says  that  in  those  days  the  youth  always 
insisted  that  "he  was  going  to  be  a  naturalist." 

The  reason  for  this  purpose  is  doubtless 
found  in  his  physical  condition  at  the  time. 
He  sought  some  occupation  that  would  not 


THE  DEVELOPING  MAN  27 

compel  him  to  remain  indoors,  for  he  had  de 
termined  to  get  a  strong  body,  if  that  were 
possible. 

"When  I  was  a  youngster,"  he  said  once,  "I 
was  pigeon-chested  and  asthmatic.  Exercise 
has  knocked  all  that  out  of  me — exercise  and 
being  in  the  open  air." 

His  hunting  books  show  the  results  of  his 
observation  of  nature  about  him.  They  are 
not  mere  tales  of  hunting.  One  might  call 
them  the  diversions  of  a  naturalist,  so  keen  a 
love  for  the  things  of  nature  do  they  dis 
close.  It  is  not  the  ordinary  hunter  or  ranch 
man  who  would  interrupt  his  story  of  cattle 
and  game  to  write  such  a  passage  as  this  about 
song  birds : 

The  meadow-lark  is  a  singer  of  a  higher 
order  [than  the  plains  skylark],  deserving  to 
rank  with  the  best.  Its  song  has  length,  va 
riety,  power,  and  rich  melody ;  and  there  is  in 
it  sometimes  a  cadence  of  wild  sadness  inex 
pressibly  touching.  Yet  I  cannot  say  that 
either  song  would  appeal  to  others  as  it  appeals 
to  me,  for  to  me  it  comes  forever  laden  with 


29      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

a  hundred  memories  and  associations ;  with  the 
sight  of  dim  hills  reddening  in  the  dawn,  with 
the  breath  of  the  cold  morning  winds  blowing 
across  lonely  plains,  with  the  scent  of  flowers 
on  the  sunlit  prairie,  with  the  motion  of  fiery 
horses,  with  all  the  strong  thrill  of  eager  and 
buoyant  life.  I  doubt  if  any  man  can  judge 
dispassionately  of  the  bird  songs  of  his  own 
country ;  he  cannot  disassociate  them  from  the 
sights  and  sounds  of  the  land  that  is  so  dear 
to  him. 

And  this  brief  quotation  from  "A  Trip  on  the 
Prairie"  shows  that  he  saw  more  than  game  on 
his  hunting  trips : 

Getting  up  and  loosing  Manitou  [his  horse] 
to  let  him  feed  round  where  he  wished  and 
slake  his  thirst,  I  took  the  rifle,  strolled  up 
the  creek  valley  a  short  distance  and  turned  off 
out  on  the  prairie.  Nothing  wras  in  sight  in 
the  way  of  game,  but  overhead  a  skylark  was 
singing,  soaring  above  me  so  high  that  I 
could  not  make  out  his  form  in  the  grey  morn 
ing  light.  I  listened  for  some  time,  and  the 
music  never  ceased  for  a  moment,  coming  down 
clear,  sweet,  and  tender  from  the  air  above. 
Soon  the  strains  of  another  answered  from  a 


THE  DEVELOPING  MAN  29 

little  distance  off,  and  the  two  kept  soaring 
and  singing  as  long  as  I  stayed  to  listen ;  and 
when  I  walked  away  I  could  still  hear  their 
notes  behind  me. 

Only  a  naturalist  would  note  the  small  plains 
animals  as  he  has  done  in  one  of  the  chapters 
in  "The  Wilderness  Hunter."  He  writes  that 
the  ordinary  cowboy  or  hunter  pays  little  heed 
to  the  smaller  birds  or  to  many  of  the  smaller 
mammals.  He  continues : 

The  prairie-dogs  he  cannot  help  noticing. 
With  the  big  pack-rats  also  he  is  well  ac 
quainted,  for  they  are  handsome,  with  soft 
grey  fur,  large  eyes,  and  bushy  tails ;  and, 
moreover,  no  one  can  avoid  remarking  their 
extraordinary  habits  of  carrying  to  their  bur 
rows  everything  bright,  useless  and  portable, 
from  an  empty  cartridge-case  to  a  skinning 
knife.  But  he  knows  nothing  of  mice,  shrews, 
pocket  gophers,  or  weasels ;  and  but  little  even 
of  some  large  mammals  with  very  marked 
characteristics.  Thus  I  have  met  but  one  or 
two  plainsmen  who  knew  anything  of  the  curi 
ous  plains  ferret,  that  rather  rare  weasel-like 
animal,  which  plays  the  same  part  on  the  plains 
that  the  mink  does  by  the  edges  of  all  our 


30      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

streams  and  brooks,  and  the  tree-loving  sable 
in  the  cold  Northern  forests. 

His  eyes  were  continually  alert  for  the  un 
usual  when  on  hunting  excursions.  Once 
while  in  the  Selkirks  after  caribou  with  a 
hunter  and  an  Indian  guide  he  amused  him 
self  while  resting  after  lunch  by  getting  a 
specimen  of  rare  animal  life  for  a  friend.  He 
says: 

I  was  sitting  on  a  great  stone  by  the  edge  of 
the  brook,  idly  gazing  at  a  water-wren  which 
had  come  up  from  a  short  flight — I  can  call  it 
nothing  else — underneath  the  water,  and  was 
singing  sweetly  from  a  spray-splashed  log. 
Suddenly  a  small  animal  swam  across  the  little 
pool  at  my  feet.  It  was  less  in  size  than  a  mouse, 
and  as  it  paddled  rapidly  underneath  the  water 
its  body  seemed  flattened  like  a  disk  and  was 
spangled  with  tiny  bubbles  like  specks  of 
silver.  It  was  a  water-shrew,  a  rare  little 
beast.  I  sat  motionless  and  watched  both  the 
shrew  and  the  water-wren — water-ousel,  as  it 
should  rightly  be  named.  The  latter,  em 
boldened  by  my  quiet,  presently  flew  by  me 
to  a  little  rapids  close  at  hand,  lighting  on  a 
round  stone  and  then  slipping  unconcernedly 


THE  DEVELOPING  MAN  31 

into  the  swift  water.  Anon  he  emerged,  stood 
on  another  stone,  and  trilled  a  few  bars, 
though  it  was  late  in  the  season  for  sing 
ing,  and  then  dived  into  the  stream  again. 
.  .  .  In  a  minute  or  two  the  shrew  caught  my 
eye  again.  It  got  into  a  little  shallow  eddy 
and  caught  a  minute  fish,  which  it  carried  to 
a  half-sunken  stone  and  greedily  devoured, 
tugging  voraciously  at  it  as  it  held  it  down 
with  its  paws.  Then  its  evil  genius  drove  it 
into  a  small  puddle  alongside  the  brook,  where 
I  instantly  pounced  on  it  and  slew  it,  for  I 
knew  a  friend  in  the  Smithsonian  at  Washing 
ton  who  would  have  coveted  it  greatly. 

Although  he  did  not  become  a  professor  of 
natural  history,  it  is  evident  that  his  love  for 
nature  began  early  and  continued  late. 

While  in  college  he  went  in  for  athletics  as 
well  as  for  the  other  sciences,  and  he  believed 
in  exercise  for  others  as  well  as  for  himself. 
In  his  sophomore  year  some  one  entered  the 
name  of  his  classmate,  William  A.  Gaston,  in 
a  wrestling  match  in  the  college  games  without 
Gaston's  knowledge.  Gaston  did  not  learn 
that  he  was  entered  until  a  few  days  be- 


32      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

fore  the  match  was  to  come  off,  and  wished 
to  withdraw,  but  Roosevelt  persuaded  him 
to  stay  in,  promising  to  coach  him.  Ac 
cordingly  Roosevelt  hunted  up  fellows  to 
wrestle  with  Gaston,  rubbed  him  down 
after  the  bouts,  and  in  general  acted  as  his 
trainer.  One  Saturday  Gaston  met  four  other 
men  in  the  gymnasium  to  be  "tried  out." 
He  threw  two  of  them  twice,  one  of  them  once, 
and  was  thrown  twice  by  the  other  one.  In 
the  final  matches  the  victor  had  to  throw  his 
opponent  twice  out  of  three  times.  The 
rules,  however,  were  rather  loose  then,  as  ath 
letic  sports  were  not  in  the  present  highly 
organised  condition.  In  a  day  or  two  Roose 
velt  and  Gaston  learned  that  Gaston  had  been 
put  on  the  final  programme  to  wrestle  with  the 
man  whom  he  had  thrown  once,  as  though  this 
man  were  a  new  candidate.  This  did  not  seem 
fair  either  to  the  wrestler  or  to  his  trainer,  and 
they  decided  to  enter  a  protest. 

As  they  were  about  to  appear  before  the  ath 
letic  committee  Roosevelt  said: 


THE  DEVELOPING  MAN  33 

"You  are  too  hot-headed,  Gaston,  to  state  the 
case.  What  it  needs  is  cold,  hard  logic.  Let 
me  present  the  case  calmly,  and  then  we  shall 
be  more  likely  to  win.  They  can't  help  see 
ing  how  unjust  it  is  to  make  you  throw  that 
man  three  times,  when  he  will  win  if  he  throws 
you  only  twice." 

Roosevelt  accordingly  stated  the  case,  be 
ginning  with  an  assumption  of  judicial  calm, 
but  before  he  got  through  with  the  discussion 
he  had  threatened  to  thrash  two  of  the  mem 
bers  of  the  committee.  The  outcome,  how 
ever,  was  as  he  had  predicted.  The  committee 
saw  the  force  of  his  arguments  and  the  pro 
gramme  was  changed. 

Roosevelt  had  considerable  faith  in  Gaston's 
ability,  for  he  backed  him  in  a  sparring  bout 
with  Ramon  Guiteras,  the  champion  middle 
weight  of  the  college.  Guiteras  was  large  and 
heavy,  too  heavy,  indeed,  for  his  class,  and 
Gaston  was  a  light-weight,  and  under  weight 
at  that.  Roosevelt  believed  that  Gaston's  grit 
and  perseverance  would  win  over  the  other 


34      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

man's  greater  weight.  The  series  of  bouts  in 
which  this  match  occurred  attracted  a  good 
deal  of  attention.  Interest  centred  especially 
in  this  bout  between  the  light-weight  and  the 
middle-weight.  And  there  was  much  gratifi 
cation  among  their  friends  when  Roosevelt's 
judgment  was  vindicated  by  Gaston's  victory. 
To  this  period  of  his  life  belongs  what  might 
be  called  the  episode  of  the  rooster.  He  liked 
fighting  cocks ;  whether  he  ever  fought  them 
does  not  appear,  and  he  had  some  in  Maine. 
One  of  the  cocks  escaped  from  its  coop  and 
wandered  about  the  village  streets,  feeding  as 
it  went  along.  Roosevelt  attempted  to  catch 
the  fowl,  but  this  was  not  easy,  for  it  flew  over 
the  fences  and  rushed  through  the  yards,  and 
the  faster  Roosevelt  ran,  the  more  excited  the 
fowl  became,  until  in  its  terror  it  flew  into 
the  second-story  window  of  a  house,  frighten 
ing  half  out  of  her  wits  an  old  woman  who  was 
in  bed  in  the  room.  Roosevelt,  instead  of 
going  in  by  the  door,  got  a  ladder  and  fol 
lowed  the  fowl  into  the  house  by  way  of  the 


THE  DEVELOPING  MAN  30 

window.  He  soon  came  out  the  same  way  with 
the  bird  squawking  and  struggling  under  his 
arm.  He  said  that  he  could  not  have  suc 
ceeded  in  catching  it  if  it  had  not  run  under 
the  old  woman's  bed.  He  cornered  it  there  and 
then  crawled  under  and  brought  it  out. 

When  he  left  college  he  went  to  Europe  and 
studied  in  Dresden.  In  his  spare  time  he  took 
a  wralking  tour,  swimming  rivers  as  he  came 
to  them  and  climbing  such  mountains  as 
pleased  his  fancy.  In  recognition  of  his 
achievements  in  ascending  the  Jungfrau  and 
the  Matterhorn  he  was  elected  a  member  of 
the  London  Alpine  Club. 

On  his  return  to  the  United  States,  he  was 
ready  to  enter  upon  the  serious  work  of  life, 
with  a  mind  well  trained  by  the  discipline  of 
four  years  in  college,  his  outlook  broadened 
by  European  travel,  and  writh  a  body  that 
would  respond  to  the  demands  of  his  will,  a  fine 
example  of  the  man  described  in  Juvenal's 
famous  aphorism. 


Ill 

THE  MAN  OF  AMBITIONS 

As  far  as  the  records  show,  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
chief  ambition  has  been  to  be  of  service.  Just 
how  did  not  matter  much,  as  long  as  he  accom 
plished  something  for  the  good  of  his  genera 
tion.  He  did  not  consent  to  become  a  candi 
date  for  membership  in  the  New  York  Legis 
lature  the  year  after  he  left  college  until  he 
had  been  persuaded  that  it  was  his  duty.  The 
district  leader  who  induced  him  to  accept  the 
nomination  has  said  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  ob 
jected  to  going  into  politics  in  that  way  and 
urged  several  other  candidates  upon  him ;  but 
before  the  interview  was  ended,  the  leader,  act 
ing  on  the  suggestion  of  an  acquaintance 
who  knew  the  young  man  thoroughly,  had 
told  him  that  he  owed  it  to  the  city  to  accept 
the  nomination. 
"You  go  and  see  those  other  men,"  said  Mr. 


THE  MAN  OF  AMBITIONS      .       37 

Roosevelt.  "One  of  them  ought  to  take  the 
nomination,  and  any  of  them  would  stand  a 
better  chance  of  election  than  I  would.  But 
if  they  won't  accept,  why  then  maybe  I'll 
run." 

"I  had  him  where  I  wanted  him,  then,"  said 
the  leader  afterward,  in  telling  of  the  inter 
view.  "And  I  didn't  trouble  myself  to  see  the 
other  men.  After  a  decent  time  I  went  back 
and  told  him  he  would  have  to  take  the  nomina 
tion,  and  he  did." 

When  he  left  college  he  began  the  study  of 
law  in  the  office  of  his  uncle,  Robert  B.  Roose 
velt,  in  New  York,  intending  to  practise  that 
profession.  This  uncle  was  nominated  as  a 
Democratic  Presidential  elector  from  the 
Twelfth  Congressional  District  of  New  York 
in  1904,  but  declined  to  serve,  setting  forth 
his  reasons  in  a  letter  containing  this  pleasant 
reference  to  his  nephew :  "While  I  differ  with 
the  President  and  the  party  with  which  he  is 
associated  as  to  certain  fundamental  principles 
of  public  policy,  I  have  the  highest  apprecia- 


38      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

tion  of  him  personally  and  of  his  unselfish  and 
unquestioned  devotion  to  the  public  good.  I 
feel  that  while  he  is  a  candidate  of  that  party 
for  the  highest  position  in  official  life,  our 
family  relations  and  the  strong  personal  affec 
tion  which  I  have  for  him  would  make  it  im 
proper  and  unbecoming  in  me  to  take  any 
part  in  the  approaching  national  canvass." 

Before  he  had  been  in  Robert  Roosevelt's  law 
office  long  enough  to  take  his  examination  for 
admission  to  the  bar,  he  was  elected  to  the 
State  Legislature,  and  he  never  practised  law. 
He  had  ideas,  however,  on  the  way  to  win  suc 
cess  at  the  bar,  for  he  expressed  them  a  few 
years  later  for  the  benefit  of  a  struggling 
young  lawyer. 

"If  I  were  you,"  he  said,  "I  would  hang  out 
my  shingle  and  get  a  case.  I  don't  care  how 
you  get  it.  Your  own  wits  ought  to  find  one, 
at  least,  which  no  other  lawyer  has.  I  would 
not  take  a  justice-shop  case,  either.  I  would 
find  a  case  that  was  right  up  in  the  regular 
courts  and  which  possessed  some  merit.  I 


THE  MAN  OF  AMBITIONS  39 

wouldn't  take  it  up  for  nothing,  either,  or  on 
a  contingency.  I  would  have  a  decent  fee  at 
tached  to  it.  In  other  words,  I  would  have  as 
many  respectable  features  attached  to  the 
case  as  possible  under  the  circumstances. 

"Having  got  that  case,  I  would  try  it  as  if  it 
were  the  last  case  I  ever  expected  to  have  or 
which  would  ever  be  in  the  courts.  I  would 
not  make  a  nuisance  of  myself — you  know 
enough  to  avoid  that — but  you  can  be  so  per 
sistent  that  you  will  win  the  respect  of  every 
one  who  in  any  way  comes  in  connection  with 
the  trial.  Put  all  of  yourself  into  the  case. 
Get  every  side  of  it,  and  above  all  things, 
hammer  it  into  your  client  by  the  force  of  your 
actions  that  your  integrity  is  above  reproach. 

"When  you  get  done  with  the  case  you  will 
have  a  reputation  that  many  lawyers  devote 
years  in  other  ways  trying  to  obtain.  You 
will  find  that  a  second  case  is  certain  to  come 
to  you  whether  you  lose  or  win  the  first  case. 
I  would  treat  the  second  case  just  as  I  did  the 
first  one.  Live  and  act  as  if  there  never  were 


40      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

such  a  case  in  existence  before,  and  master  it, 
just  as  you  are  required  to  master  your 
studies  at  the  law  school.  If  you  find  yourself 
weakening  at  all,  use  the  spur  and  whip  until 
you  have  created  an  enthusiasm  in  your  work 
that  imparts  itself  to  client,  court,  and  jury, 
and  results  in  your  victory. 

"Go  at  the  third  case  in  the  same  way.  And 
for  the  matter  of  that,  as  your  patronage 
increases,  give  the  same  treatment  to  all  your 
cases.  You  will  create  confidence  in  yourself 
that  will  insure  you  a  constant  practice,  and 
your  clients,  once  secured,  will  never  leave 
you." 

It  may  be  worth  while  noting  that  this  theory 
worked,  for  the  young  man  put  it  into  prac 
tice  and  won  his  first  case  on  a  technical  point 
which  all  the  other  lawyers  had  overlooked. 
Mr.  Roosevelt  himself  finally  settled  upon 
literature  as  a  profession,  after  reaching  the 
conclusion  that  there  was  no  room  in  politics 
for  such  a  man  as  he.  He  expressed  himself 
on  this  subject  quite  emphatically  as  long  ago 


THE  MAN  OF  AMBITIONS  41 

as  April,  1884,  just  after  his  remarkable 
triumph  in  the  Republican  State  convention 
in  Utica,  New  York,  which  elected  him  as  one 
of  the  four  delegates-at-large  from  the  State 
to  the  national  convention.  He  was  then  only 
twenty-five  years  old  and  had  within  a  few 
months  suffered  a  double  bereavement  in  the 
death  of  his  first  wife  and  of  his  mother.  Con 
sequently  this  letter,  which  he  wrote  to  Mr. 
S.  N.  D.  North,  then  managing  editor  of  the 
Utica  Herald,  is  almost  as  remarkable  as  the 
personal  triumph  to  which  it  refers. 

STATE  OF  NEW  YORK, 
ASSEMBLY  CHAMBER, 

ALBANY,  April  30,  1884. 
DEAR  MR.  NORTH  :  I  wish  to  write  you  a  few 
words  just  to  thank  you  for  your  kindness 
towards  me,  and  to  assure  you  that  my  head 
will  not  be  turned  by  what  I  well  know  was  a 
mainly  accidental  success.  Although  not  a 
very  old  man,  I  have  yet  lived  a  great  deal  in 
my  life,  and  I  have  known  sorrow  too  bitter 
and  joy  too  keen  to  allow  me  to  become  either 
cast  down  or  elated  for  more  than  a  very  brief 
period  over  any  success  or  defeat. 


42      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

I  have  very  little  expectation  of  being  able 
to  keep  on  in  politics ;  my  success  so  far  has 
only  been  won  by  absolute  indifference  to  my 
future  career ;  for  I  doubt  if  any  one  can 
realise  the  bitter  and  venomous  hatred  with 
which  I  am  regarded  by  the  very  politicians 
who  at  Utica  supported  me,  under  dictation 
from  masters  who  were  influenced  by  political 
considerations  that  were  national  and  not  local 
in  their  scope.  I  realise  very  thoroughly  the 
absolutely  ephemeral  nature  of  the  hold  I  have 
upon  the  people,  and  the  very  real  and  posi 
tive  hostility  I  have  excited  among  the  poli 
ticians.  I  will  not  stay  in  public  life  unless 
I  can  do  so  on  my  own  terms ;  and  my  ideal, 
whether  lived  up  to  or  not,  is  rather  a  high 
one. 

For  very  many  reasons  I  will  not  mind  going 
back  into  private  life  for  a  few  years.  My 
work  this  winter  has  been  very  harassing,  and 
I  feel  both  tired  and  restless ;  for  the  next  few 
months  I  shall  probably  be  in  Dakota,  and  I 
think  I  shall  spend  the  next  two  or  three  years 
in  making  shooting  trips,  either  in  the  far 
West  or  in  the  Northern  woods — and  there 
will  be  plenty  of  work  to  do  writing. 
Very  truly  yours, 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT. 


THE  MAN  OF  AMBITIONS  43 

III  1893,  nine  years  later,  he  wrote  another 
letter  in  a  similar  vein.  He  was  then  a  mem 
ber  of  the  National  Civil  Service  Commission. 
Since  writing  the  first  he  had  been  an  unsuc 
cessful  candidate  for  the  mayoralty  of  New 
York,  and  had  been  devoting  his  time  to 
ranching,  hunting,  and  writing,  as  he  had  told 
Mr.  North  he  expected  to  do.  In  the  course 
of  this  second  letter  he  frankly  declares  that 
"my  career  is  that  of  a  literary  man."  Here 
is  the  letter: 

If  a  man  has  political  foresight,  who  lives 
in  a  district  where  the  people  think  as  he  does 
and  where  he  has  a  great  hold  over  them,  then 
he  can  seriously  go  in  for  a  continuous  public 
career ;  and  I  suppose  in  such  a  case  it  is  all 
right  for  him  to  shape  his  public  course  more 
or  less  with  a  view  to  his  own  continuance  in 
office.  I  am  a  little  inclined  to  envy  a  man 
who  can  look  forward  to  a  long  and  steady 
course  of  public  service,  but  in  my  own  case 
such  a  career  is  out  of  the  question ;  and  per 
sonally  it  seems  to  me  that  a  man's  comfort 
and  usefulness  in  public  are  greatly  impaired 
the  moment  he  begins  to  get  worrying  about 


44      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

liow  his  votes  and  actions  will  affect  his  own 
future.  When  I  was  in  the  Legislature  I  soon 
found  that  for  my  own  happiness,  as  well  as 
for  the  sake  of  doing  good  work,  I  had  to 
cast  aside  all  thoughts  of  my  own  future ;  and 
as  soon  as  I  had  made  up  my  mind  to  this  end 
and  voted  simply  as  I  thought  right,  not  only 
disregarding  people  themselves,  if  I  honestly 
thought  they  were  all  wrong  on  a  matter  of 
principle,  not  of  men  or  expediency,  then  I 
began  thoroughly  to  enjoy  myself  and  to  feel 
that  I  was  doing  good. 

It  is  just  the  same  way  with  my  present  work 
as  Civil  Service  Commissioner.  I  believe  in 
it  with  all  my  heart,  and  am  absolutely  certain 
that  I  could  not  possibly  be  engaged  in  any 
other  work  at  the  present  moment  more  vitally 
important  to  the  public  welfare ;  and  I  liter 
ally  do  not  care  a  rap  what  politicians  say  of 
me,  in  or  out  of  Congress,  save  in  so  far  as 
my  actions  may  help  or  hurt  the  cause  for 
which  I  am  working.  My  hands  are  fortu 
nately  perfectly  free,  for  I  have  not  the  slight 
est  concern  about  my  political  future.  My 
career  is  that  of  a  literary  man,  and  as  soon 
as  I  am  out  of  my  present  place  I  shall  go 
back  to  my  books.  I  may  not  ever  be  called 
to  take  another  public  place,  or  I  may  be ;  in 
any  event,  I  shall  try  to  do  decent  work  while 


THE  MAN  OF  AMBITIONS  45 

I  am  in  office.  I  shall  probably  enjoy  the 
life  greatly  while  I  am  taking  part  in  it,  and 
I  shall  certainly  be  ready  at  any  time  to  go 
out  of  it  with  a  perfectly  light  heart.* 

It  was  evidently  not  because  he  liked  "the 
quiet  life"  that  he  said  his  career  was  to  be 
literary.  Things  were  not  quiet  in  the  Civil 
Service  Commission  when  he  was  a  member  of 
it.  And  he  enjoyed  the  work,  as  we  have  just 
seen.  When  he  resigned  to  become  president 
of  the  Police  Commission  of  New  York  City 
it  was  because  he  thought  that  things  would  be 
happening  there.  As  he  said  to  a  friend  at  the 
time: 

"I  thought  the  storm  centre  was  in  New 
York,  and  so  I  came  here.  It  is  a  great  piece 
of  practical  work.  I  like  to  take  hold  of  work 
that  has  been  done  by  a  Tammany  leader,  and 
do  it  as  well,  only  by  approaching  it  from  the 
opposite  direction.  The  thing  that  attracted 
me  to  it  was  that  it  was  to  be  done  in  the  hurly- 
burly,  for  I  don't  like  cloister  life." 

*  Quoted  in  New  York  Tribune  in   1901. 


46      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

He  left  the  Police  Commission  to  become  As 
sistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy  because  he 
thought  that  there  was  work  to  be  done  in 
preparation  for  a  possible  war  over  Cuba,  and 
when  war  became  inevitable,  he  resigned 
again,  to  organise  a  regiment  to  go  to  the 
front  that  he  might  still  be  in  the  "storm  cen 
tre,"  as  he  called  it. 

After  he  returned  from  Cuba  he  expressed  to 
many  people  his  desire  to  go  to  the  Philippines 
as  Governor,  to  bring  order  out  of  chaos  there. 
The  problem  was  a  difficult  one,  he  knew,  but 
its  solution  was  of  first  importance,  and  he 
wished  to  have  a  hand  in  it.  He  was  nomi 
nated  for  the  Governorship  of  New  York  in 
stead.  Even  after  he  was  elected  Governor  the 
thought  of  the  Philippines  was  not  dismissed 
altogether.  It  has  been  said  that  he  expressed 
his  desire  to  go  there  to  Alton  B.  Parker,  then 
chief  judge  of  the  New  York  Court  of  Ap 
peals,  and  that  Judge  Parker  told  him  that  he 
was  destined  for  the  Presidency.  But  Judge 
Parker  himself  says  that  though  he  had  many 


THE  MAX  OF  AMBITIONS  47 

pleasant  conversations  with  Mr.  Roosevelt 
while  he  was  Governor,  this  one  never  oc 
curred. 

During  the  campaign  for  the  governorship 
lie  still  had  the  literary  life  in  view  as  a  per 
manency  when  he  should  have  leisure  from  his 
public  avocations.  When  the  nomination  had 
been  made  the  newspaper  men  flocked  to  Oys 
ter  Bay  to  discover  what  manner  of  man  he 
was  and  what  kind  of  life  he  led  there.  To 
one  of  them  he  said : 

"This  house  has  been  my  home  for  fifteen 
years.  It  is  the  one  place  where  all  my  things 
are.  Whenever  I  live  anywhere  else  I  simply 
rent  a  house.  Eleven  of  those  fifteen  years  I 
have  spent  in  government  service,  so  I  have 
not  stayed  here  in  the  winters  often.  I  am  not 
certain  of  being  elected  Governor,  of  course. 
If  I  am  not  in  Albany  this  winter  I  shall  go 
on  with  my  literary  work.  I  shall  go  on  with 
my  'Winning  of  the  West,'  which  I  am  much 
interested  in,  and  I  shall  start  my  history  of 
the  Cuban  war." 


48      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

After  a  winter  in  Albany,  intimately  con 
nected  with  the  making  of  law,  his  early  love 
for  the  legal  profession  returned,  and  his  re 
gret  that  he  had  not  given  more  attention  to  it 
in  his  youth  led  him,  when  he  was  elected  to 
the  Vice-Presidency,  to  plan  to  devote  to  the 
study  of  the  law  what  leisure  he  would  have. 
He  expressed  this  determination  to  a  friend 
who  was  wondering  what  use  a  man  of  his  ac 
tive  temperament  would  make  of  his  time.  He 
replied  that  there  were  good  opportunities  in 
Washington  to  read  law.  He  could  either 
enter  the  classes  of  a  law  school  there,  or  he 
could  read  law  with  some  firm  in  the  city.  In 
two  years  he  could  be  admitted  to  the  bar  of 
the  District  of  Columbia,  so  that  at  the  expira 
tion  of  his  term  as  Vice-President  he  would  be 
in  a  position  to  return  to  New  York  to  prac 
tise  there.  He  felt  sure  that  he  could  then 
make  an  advantageous  connection  with  a  firm 
with  a  large  practice. 

The  accident  of  the  death  of  President  Mc- 
Kinley  changed  these  plans,  and  laid  upon  him 


THE  MAN  OF  AMBITIONS  49 

new  and  strange  duties.  There  naturally  came 
to  him  the  ambition  to  succeed  himself  as  Pres 
ident  and  to  have  the  approval  of  the  country 
on  his  administration.  This  ambition  was 
gratified,  and  when  the  news  reached  the  White 
House  on  election  night  that  he  had  been 
chosen  it  gave  him  great  satisfaction. 

The  pressure  of  circumstances  has  forced 
upon  him  the  career  that  he  most  desired  when 
a  young  man,  and  at  the  age  of  fifty-one  he 
will  leave  the  national  capital,  after  having 
reached  the  highest  position  attainable  by  an 
American. 

What  next  ?  He  tells  his  friends  that  he  would 
like  to  spend  a  year  or  so  in  travel,  hunting 
large  and  small  game  in  Europe  and  Asia. 
This  would  give  him  a  period  of  rest  at  the 
close  of  seven  years  of  arduous  labour.  After 
that  he  has  declared  more  than  once  that  it 
would  delight  him  to  enter  the  Senate  as  one 
of  the  representatives  from  the  State  of  New 
York.  Two  other  Presidents  have  served  in 
Congress  after  the  expiration  of  their  term. 


50      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

The  first  was  John  Quincy  Adams,  who  was 
elected  to  the  House  of  Representatives  two 
years  after  he  retired  and  remained  in  the 
House  for  many  years.  The  other  was  An 
drew  Johnson.  He  was  elected  to  the  Senate 
from  Tennessee  and  took  his  seat  in  the  special 
session  of  1875.  He  died  a  few  months  later. 
What  the  future  holds  for  the  ambitious  man 
in  Washington  no  one  can  tell.  But  when  a 
man  is  so  eager  as  he  to  serve  his  generation, 
it  is  certain  that  he  will  find  some  way  to 
accomplish  his  desire. 


IV 

THE  WESTERN  MAN 


MR.  ROOSEVELT'S  sympathies  with  the  North 
and  the  South  were  bred  in  him.  Indeed, 
he  has  suggested  that  some  of  his  tastes 
as  well  are  inherited.  "Those  of  us  who  are 
in  part  of  Southern  blood,"  he  once  wrote, 
"have  an  hereditary  right  to  be  fond  of  cross 
country  riding;  for  some  of  our  forefathers 
in  Virginia,  Georgia,  or  the  Carolinas  have 
for  six  generations  followed  the  fox  with 
horse,  horn,  and  hound." 

His  comprehension  of  the  West  is  his  own 
achievement.  And  curiously  enough,  this  off 
spring  of  the  old  families  and  the  old  civilisa 
tions  of  the  seaboard  finds  himself  in  greater 
sympathy  with  the  fundamental  democracy  of 
the  plains  than  with  the  more  complicated  life 
of  the  East. 

In  the  West  as  he  knew  it,  a  man  stands  or 


62      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

falls  according  as  he  masters,  by  his  own 
strength,  the  natural  conditions  about  him. 
The  man  who  succeeds  on  the  plains  and  in  the 
mountains  is  like  the  animal  which  holds  its 
own  in  the  forest.  He  must  take  what  he  wills 
from  a  resisting  earth.  The  life  there  de 
velops  men  who  can  look  with  level  eyes  and 
unabashed  upon  anything  that  walks  on  four 
feet,  or  on  two  feet,  either.  It  is  a  trying-out 
place  for  developing  defenders  of  government 
by  the  people,  and  those  who  survive  are  fit, 
indeed. 

Into  this  country  Mr.  Roosevelt  went  in  1883 
to  hunt  buffalo.  He  arrived  at  Medora  on  the 
Little  Missouri  River  in  Dakota  Territory  in 
September  of  that  year,  and  when  he  inquired 
about  the  hunting  prospects  was  told  that  he 
would  have  to  ride  fifty  miles  into  a  rough, 
unbroken  country  before  finding  any  big 
game.  Saddle-horses  were  difficult  to  obtain, 
and  were  not  trustworthy  when  they  could  be 
got.  Camping  in  the  open  was  not  agreeable 
or  restful  after  a  long  day  in  the  saddle,  and 


THE  WESTERN  MAN  53 

only  strong  men  voluntarily  endured  the  hard 
ships  of  buffalo  hunting  in  that  part  of  the 
country.  Mr.  Roosevelt  did  not  look  like  a 
strong  man.  He  is  not  tall  and  then  he  was 
rather  slender,  as  a  young  man  of  less  than 
twenty-five  naturally  would  be.  Besides,  he 
wore  glasses,  which  Westerners  living  in  the 
open  fortunately  do  not  need  till  age  dims 
their  sight.  No  one  was  anxious  to  go  hunt 
ing  with  the  slight  Easterner,  but  finally  his 
determination  impressed  Mr.  J.  A.  Ferris,  an 
experienced  guide,  and  he  consented  to  go  with 
him. 

"We  started  out  with  a  hunting  outfit  to 
the  head  of  Bacon  Creek,  about  fifty  miles 
from  the  railroad  crossing,"  said  Mr.  Ferris 
later,  in  describing  the  trip.  "Mr.  Roosevelt 
was  on  horseback,  and  where  he  learned  to  ride 
I  don't  know ;  but  he  rode  as  well,  if  not  better, 
than  I  did  and  could  stand  just  as  much 
knocking  about. 

"In  making  or  breaking  camp  he  was  as 
handy  as  a  pocket  in  a  shirt  and  seemed  to 


54      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

know  just  what  to  do.  On  the  first  night  out, 
when  we  were  twenty-five  or  thirty  miles  from 
a  settlement,  we  went  into  camp  on  the  open 
prairie,  with  our  saddle-blankets  over  us,  our 
horses  picketed  and  the  picket  ropes  tied  about 
the  horns  of  our  saddles,  which  we  used  for  pil 
lows. 

"In  the  middle  of  the  night  there  was  a  rush, 
our  pillows  were  swept  from  under  our  heads 
and  our  horses  went  tearing  off  over  the 
prairie,  frightened  by  wolves.  Away  they 
tore,  and  we  heard  the  saddles  thumping  over 
the  ground  after  them.  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  up 
and  off  in  a  minute.  Together  we  chased  those 
frightened  horses  over  the  prairie  until  they 
slackened  speed  and  we  caught  up  with  them. 
The  night  was  dark  and  there  was  little  to 
guide  us  on  our  return.  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
bump  of  locality  was  good,  and  he  led  the  way 
back  to  camp  straight  as  a  die. 

"On  the  following  day  we  reached  our  hunt 
ing  grounds,  and  for  several  days  travelled 
about  without  being  able  to  get  a  shot  at  a 


THE  WESTERN  MAN  55 

buffalo.  On  the  fourth  or  fifth  day  out,  I 
think  it  was,  while  we  were  riding  along,  our 
horses  pricked  up  their  ears,  as  they  will  do 
when  big  game  is  near,  and  I  told  Mr.  Roose 
velt  that  there  wras  a  buffalo  close  at  hand. 

"We  dismounted  and  advanced  to  a  big  wash 
out  near  by  and  peered  over  the  edge.  There 
stood  a  huge  buffalo  bull  calmly  feeding  and 
unaware  of  our  presence. 

"  'Hit  him  where  that  patch  of  red  shows  on 
his  side,'  said  I,  'and  you've  got  him.' 

"Mr.  Roosevelt  was  as  cool  as  a  cucumber. 
He  raised  his  gun  carefully,  took  aim  calmly 
and  fired.  Out  came  the  buffalo  from  the 
washout  with  blood  pouring  from  his  mouth 
and  nose. 

"  'You've  shot  him,'  I  shouted,  and  so  it 
proved,  for  the  buffalo  plunged  a  few  steps 
and  fell  dead." 

He  has  since  shot  nearly,  if  not  -quite,  all 
kinds  of  big  game  to  be  found  in  North  Amer 
ica,  and  even  now  the  highest  compliment 
which  he  can  pay  to  a  man  is  to  invite  him  to 


56      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

go  shooting  with  him.  Indeed,  he  took  this 
way  of  indicating  his  personal  admiration  for 
the  German  Emperor,  when  soon  after  becom 
ing  President  he  sent  an  invitation  to  him 
through  Mr.  Andrew  D.  White,  then  United 
States  Ambassador  in  Berlin,  to  hunt  with 
him  in  the  Rocky  Mountains.  He  said 
that  he  envied  the  emperor  for  having  shot 
a  whale,  but  that  if  his  majesty  would 
come  to  America  he  should  have  the  best  pos 
sible  opportunity  to  add  a  Rocky  Mountain 
lion  to  his  trophies,  and  that  he  would  thus  be 
the  first  monarch  to  kill  a  lion  since  Tiglath 
Pileser,  whose  exploit  is  shown  on  the  old 
monuments  of  Assyria. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  had  not  been  long  in  the  West 
before  he  discovered,  if  he  did  not  already 
know,  that  the  social  conventions  there  differ 
from  those  in  the  East.  And  he  had  several 
interesting  experiences  before  he  convinced 
those  whom  he  met  that  he  was  entitled  to  as 
much  consideration  as  any  self-respecting 
Westerner. 


THE  WESTERN  MAN  57 

One  evening  after  supper  he  was  reading  at 
a  table  in  the  public  room  of  a  frontier  hotel 
where  he  was  passing  the  night.  The  room 
was  office,  dining-room,  barroom,  and  every 
thing  else.  A  man,  half  drunk,  came  into  the 
hotel  with  a  swagger,  marched  up  to  the  bar 
and  with  a  flourish  of  his  arm  commanded 
everybody  to  drink.  Everybody  was  willing 
to  obey,  that  is,  everybody  but  Mr.  Roose 
velt.  He  still  sat  at  the  table  busy  with  his 
book. 

"Who's  that  fellow?"  the  man  asked,  point 
ing  in  Roosevelt's  direction. 

"  'Oh,  he's  a  tenderfoot,  just  arrived,"  some 
one  said. 

"Humph,"  he  grunted.  Then  he  turned 
square  around  and  called  out :  "Say  you,  Mr. 
Four-eyes,  I  asked  this  house  to  drink.  Did 
you  hear  me?" 

Mr.  Roosevelt  made  no  reply.  The  man 
swaggered  over  to  him,  pulling  out  his  pistol 
and  firing  as  he  crossed  the  room. 

"I  want  you  to  understand  that  when  I  ask  a 


58      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

man  to  drink  with  me,  that  man's  got  to 
drink,"  he  threatened,  fondling  his  still  smok 
ing  pistol. 

"You  must  excuse  me  to-night.  I  do  not 
care  for  anything  to  drink,"  said  Roosevelt. 

"That  don't  go  here.  You  just  order  your 
drink  or  there'll  be  more  trouble." 

"Very  well,  sir,"  Roosevelt  replied,  rising 
slowly  to  his  feet  and  waiting  till  he  was  firmly 
poised  on  them  before  completing  his  remark, 
"I  do  not  care  for  anything,  but  if  I 
must " 

With  the  word  "must"  he  let  his  fist  fly,  strik 
ing  the  bully  a  terrific  blow  on  the  jaw  and 
knocked  him  to  the  floor.  In  an  instant  Roose 
velt  was  astride  of  him  with  his  knees  hold 
ing  down  the  man's  arms.  After  taking  away 
all  the  weapons  he  could  find  he  let  the  man  up. 

"Now,  I  hope  you  understand,  sir,  that  I  do 
not  care  to  drink  with  you,"  said  the  young 
"tenderfoot,"  who  had  hardened  his  muscles 
to  some  purpose  before  he  went  West. 

This   is   the  common   version  of  the   story. 


THE  WESTERN  MAN  59 

Mr.  Roosevelt  has  referred  to  the  incident  in 
this  way :  "I  was  never  shot  at  maliciously  but 
once.  This  was  on  the  occasion  when  I  had  to 
pass  the  night  in  a  little  frontier  hotel  where 
the  barroom  occupied  the  whole  lower  floor, 
and  was  in  consequence  the  place  where  every 
one,  drunk  or  sober,  had  to  sit.  My  assailant 
was  neither  a  cowboy  nor  a  bona  fide  'bad 
man,'  but  a  broad-hatted  ruffian  of  a  cheap 
and  commonplace  type  who  had  for  the  mo 
ment  terrorised  the  other  men  in  the  barroom, 
these  being  mostly  sheep-herders  and  small 
grangers.  The  fact  that  I  wore  glasses,  to 
gether  with  my  evident  desire  to  avoid  a  fight, 
apparently  gave  him  the  impression — a  mis 
taken  one — that  I  would  not  resent  an  in 
jury." 

His  suggestion  that  the  sheep-herders  are 
easily  bullied  is  characteristic  of  a  Western 
cattle-men.  The  cowboys  were  the  real  heroes 
of  the  West  in  those  days,  for  the  care  of  the 
cattle  called  into  use  the  manly  qualities  of 
physical  courage  and  endurance.  A  success- 


60      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

ful  cowboy  must  be  a  skilled  horseman,  must 
be  able  to  handle  a  rope,  and  be  at  home  on  a 
trackless  range.  An  amusing  reference  to  the 
persistence  of  his  feeling  about  the  superiority 
of  the  cattle-men  was  made  after  he  became 
President.  The  friends  of  several  applicants 
for  appointment  as  United  States  marshal  in 
one  of  the  Western  States  were  urging  the 
claims  of  their  candidates,  when  the  chairman 
of  one  delegation  spoke  of  another  candidate 
as  a  "sheep-man," 

The  President  assumed  an  air  of  mock  solem 
nity  as  he  remarked:  "Gentlemen,  that  is  not 
fair.  You  should  not  appeal  to  my  old  preju 
dices  as  a  cattle-man  in  this  way." 

When  the  Marquis  de  Mores,  whose  ranch 
was  in  the  same  part  of  the  territory  as  Mr. 
Roosevelt's,  attempted  to  bulldose  him — there 
is  no  foundation  in  the  story  that  the  Marquis 
challenged  him  to  a  duel — he  met  the  situa 
tion  with  perfect  self-possession.  The  Mar 
quis  had  the  reputation  of  being  a  "bad  man." 
This  was  because  he  was  a  mediaeval  French- 


THE  WESTERN  MAN  61 

man  born  out  of  his  time,  and  thought  that 
any  reflection  upon  his  honour  or  upon  any 
thing  that  concerned  him  must  be  resented  to 
the  death.  Naturally  he  got  into  frequent 
trouble  in  the  democratic  surroundings  of  the 
cattle  country  and  he  was  not  let  alone  until 
he  had  killed  a  man.  This  did  not  improve  his 
reputation,  and  when  his  cowboys  and  Roose 
velt's  clashed,  everybody  expected  trouble  be 
tween  the  masters. 

The  Marquis  justified  the  expectation  by 
sending  a  messenger  to  Mr.  Roosevelt,  bear 
ing  a  letter  containing  the  intimation  that 
there  was  a  way  for  gentlemen  to  settle  their 
differences  and  calling  his  attention  to  it. 
This  was  as  near  a  challenge  to  a  duel  as  it 
came,  but  it  was  near  enough.  Roosevelt  had 
no  book  at  hand  on  the  etiquette  of  duelling. 
It  might  have  told  him  that  in  such  circum 
stances  he  should  reply,  "Yours  of  even  date 
at  hand  and  contents  noted.  Shall  be  glad  to 
meet  you  under  the  lone  pine  at  seven  o'clock 
to-morrow  morning,"  or  words  to  that  effect. 


62      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

He  did  not  think  duelling  worth  while,  and, 
regardless  of  the  precedents  of  an  antiquated 
code,  he  sent  word  that  there  must  be  some 
misunderstanding,  and  that  he  would  follow 
the  messenger  in  an  hour  or  so  to  discover 
what  it  was  all  about.  The  Marquis,  not  to  be 
made  ridiculous  by  such  a  matter-of-fact  treat 
ment  of  the  case,  sent  another  messenger  to 
meet  Mr.  Roosevelt  with  an  invitation  to  din 
ner  as  soon  as  the  reply  arrived.  The  invita 
tion  was  accepted,  and  coffee  for  two  was 
served  without  the  pistols  of  the  old-fashioned 
"affair  of  honour." 

Mr.  Roosevelt  had  been  ranching  some  time 
when  this  happened.  It  was  during  his  buf 
falo-hunting  trip  that  he  decided  that  the 
country  which  supported  big  game  would  also 
support  cattle,  and  he  made  arrangements  to 
fatten  steers  on  the  land,  supplying  the  cattle 
in  the  first  place  to  a  partner  who  had  a  ranch. 
Later  he  acquired  two  ranches  and  persisted  in 
the  business  for  some  years,  notwithstanding 
the  severe  losses  he  sustained  through  the  de- 


THE  WESTERN  MAN  63 

struction  of  his  cattle  by  blizzards.  He  lived 
and  worked  among  his  men  and  was  like  them 
save  that  he  carried  a  razor  and  read  good 
literature.  He  usually  carried  a  book  or  two 
with  him  on  his  hunting  trips  or  whenever  he 
expected  to  be  away  from  the  ranch-house  for 
any  great  length  of  time.  He  had  pocket 
editions  of  Burns  and  Shakespeare  and  other 
classics.  On  one  occasion  while  he  was  hunt 
ing  for  a  lost  horse,  he  was  overtaken  at 
night  by  a  snowstorm  and  took  refuge  in  a 
deserted  hut  in  company  with  a  cowboy  whom 
he  had  run  across  on  a  similar  errand.  There 
were  no  inhabited  houses,  if  there  were  houses 
of  any  kind,  for  many  miles.  The  two  men 
built  a  fire  and  ate  their  supper  together. 
Then  "to  while  away  the  long  evening,"  Mr. 
Roosevelt  writes,  "I  read  Hamlet  aloud  from 
a  little  pocket  Shakespeare.  The  cowboy,  a 
Texan — one  of  the  best  riders  I  have  ever  seen, 
and  also  a  very  intelligent  as  well  as  a  thor 
oughly  good  fellow  in  every  way — was  greatly 
interested  in  it  and  commented  most  shrewdly 


64,      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

on  the  parts  he  liked,  especially  Polonius's 
advice  to  Laertes,  which  he  translated  into 
homely  language  with  great  relish,  and  ended 
with  the  just  criticism  that  'old  Shakespeare 
saveyed  human  natur'  some.' ' 

In  all  respects  Mr.  Roosevelt  entered  into  the 
life  about  him  with  a  wholesome  zest.  His 
horses  were  as  good  as  the  best,  and  his  men, 
both  those  whom  he  took  with  him  from  the 
East  and  those  whom  he  employed  in  the  West, 
were  as  loyal  to  him  as  it  was  possible  for  men 
to  be.  He  washed  his  own  clothes  the  same  as 
the  others.  He  went  to  the  frontier  balls  and 
danced  with  the  women,  opening  one  cowboy 
ball  with  the  wife  of  a  small  stockman,  who  had 
not  long  before  killed  a  noted  bully  of  the 
neighbourhood  in  self-defence,  the  stockman 
himself  dancing  opposite.  The  dance  was  the 
lancers,  and  Mr.  Roosevelt  says  that  the  stock 
man  knew  all  the  steps  better  than  he  did. 

During  his  residence  in  the  West  he  did  not 
forget  his  duties  as  an  orderly  citizen  of  a  dis 
orderly  country,  in  which  each  man  had  to  de- 


THE  WESTERN  MAN  65 

fend  his  own  property.  The  part  of  the  ter 
ritory  in  which  he  was  living  had  been  pretty 
well  cleared  of  horse  and  cattle  stealers  in  the 
early  winter  of  1885,  but  three  suspected  men 
remained,  and  as  spring  approached  they  be 
came  anxious  to  leave  that  part  of  the  coun 
try,  as  threats  to  lynch  them  had  been  made. 
The  leader  of  these  three  was  named  Finne- 
gan.  He  usually  explained  that  he  was  "from 
Bitter  Creek,  where  the  further  up  you  went 
the  worse  people  got,"  and  he  "lived  at  the 
fountain  head,"  a  description,  when  you  come 
to  think  of  it,  not  devoid  of  merit.  Finnegan 
and  his  companions — a  German  and  a  half- 
breed — had  a  hut  on  the  river-bank  about 
twenty  miles  above  Roosevelt's  ranch,  and 
Roosevelt  knew  it.  He  knew,  too,  that  they 
wished  to  get  away.  Therefore,  when  one  of 
his  men  told  him,  in  March,  1886,  that  his 
Eastern-built  skiff,  used  in  crossing  the  Little 
Missouri  to  the  horse  range  on  the  other  side, 
had  been  stolen,  he  at  once  decided  that  these 
men  were  the  thieves.  The  skiff  was  light  and 


66      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

strong  and  was  much  more  easily  handled  than 
the  flat-bottomed  scow  which  they  were  known 
to  have. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  decided  to  deliver  the  men  up  to 
justice,  if  possible,  as  he  believed  that  to  sub 
mit  tamely  on  this  occasion  would  invite  fur 
ther  depredations  from  lawless  characters. 
He  therefore  had  Sewall  and  Dow,  the  two 
Maine  men  whom  he  had  taken  with  him  to  the 
West,  make  a  flat-bottomed  boat.  They  com 
pleted  it  in  three  days  of  rapid  work.  Then  it 
was  loaded  with  provisions  enough  to  last  for 
about  two  weeks,  and  Mr.  Roosevelt,  Dow,  and 
Sewall  embarked  in  it  in  pursuit  of  the  thieves. 
They  counted  on  overtaking  them  in  a  short 
time,  as  they  knew  that  Finnegan  was  aware 
that  the  Roosevelt  skiff  was  the  only  boat  be 
sides  his  own  scow  on  that  part  of  the  river  and 
would  conclude  that  he  was  safe  from  pursuit. 
It  was  not  practicable  to  follow  the  thieves  down 
the  river  on  horseback.  Finnegan  had  not 
counted  on  the  building  of  a  new  boat,  so  he 
was  taken  unawares,  when,  on  the  afternoon  of 


THE  WESTERN  MAN  67 

the  third  day  of  the  pursuit,  Roosevelt's 
party,  as  they  turned  a  bend  in  the  river,  saw 
the  smoke  from  a  camp  fire  and  not  far  from 
it,  on  the  river-bank,  the  stolen  boat  tied  to  the 
shore.  Then  they  knew  that  the  thieves  could 
not  be  far  away.  They  fastened  their  own  boat 
to  the  bank  and  separated,  planning  to  sur 
round  the  camp.  When  they  came  near 
enough  to  see  what  was  going  on  they  dis 
covered  that  only  one  of  the  three  men  was 
there,  and  he  was  sitting  down  without  his 
weapons. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  covered  him  with  his  gun  and 
ordered  him  to  hold  up  his  hands.  Then  the 
three  men  rushed  in  and  searched  him  to  make 
sure  that  he  had  no  pistols  in  his  pockets,  and 
to  prevent  him  from  giving  an  alarm  to  his 
companions.  Dow  was  left  in  charge  of  the 
prisoner  while  Sewall  and  Mr.  Roosevelt  went 
some  distance  to  a  point  from  which  they  com 
manded  all  paths  to  the  camp  and  awaited  the 
return  of  the  others.  After  a  time  they  heard 
voices  approaching,  and  soon  Finnegan  and  his 


G8      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

companion  came  in  sight.  They  were  at  once 
covered  by  the  Roosevelt  guns  and  commanded 
to  surrender.  As  they  had  no  alternative 
worth  considering,  they  obeyed  and  were 
marched  back  to  the  camp.  As  it  was  late  they 
all  remained  where  they  were  that  night.  It 
was  bitterly  cold,  and  the  problem  of  guarding 
their  prisoners  became  a  difficult  one.  If  their 
feet  and  arms  were  bound  tightly  enough  to 
make  them  helpless  the  circulation  of  the  blood 
would  be  stopped  and  the  hands  and  feet  of  the 
men  would  be  frozen.  As  the  next  best  way  of 
making  the  men  helpless,  their  boots  were  taken 
off  and  they  were  compelled  to  sleep  all  to 
gether  in  one  blanket.  The  country  was  so 
full  of  prickly  cactus  that  Mr.  Roosevelt 
knew  that  the  men  would  not  attempt  to  es 
cape  in  their  stocking  feet.  As  an  additional 
precaution,  the  night  was  divided  into  two 
watches,  one  of  the  captors  sitting  up  half  the 
night  and  another  the  other  half,  while  the 
third  man  had  his  sleep  unbroken.  The  next 
morning  the  start  was  made  down  the  river  to 


THE  WESTERN  MAN  69 

the  nearest  sheriff  and  gaol,  which  they  hoped 
to  reach  in  three  or  four  days  at  the  most. 
But  their  plans  were  disarranged  by  the  ice  in 
the  river.  For  ten  days  they  followed  an  ice- 
jam  down  stream,  which  moved  so  slowly  that 
before  they  reached  the  "C  Diamond"  ranch, 
their  provisions  were  almost  exhausted  and  for 
two  or  three  days  they  had  been  living  on  flour 
and  water  mixed  up  together  and  baked.  On 
the  outskirts  of  this  ranch  they  found  a  hut 
with  a  solitary  cowboy  and  some  bronchos.  Mr. 
Roosevelt  left  his  prisoners  here  while  he  rode 
to  a  ranch  fifteen  miles  away,  where  he  was 
told  he  could  get  a  waggon  for  carrying  them 
safely  to  the  sheriff  at  Dickinson.  After  en 
gaging  the  waggon,  a  "prairie  schooner,"  and 
a  team  of  horses,  with  the  ranchman  for  a 
driver,  he  returned  to  the  cowboy's  hut  and  his 
prisoners.  The  next  day  he  walked  the  pris 
oners,  with  Dow  and  Sewall  as  assistant 
guards,  to  the  ranchman's  house  and  loaded 
them  into  the  schooner.  Then  he  dismissed 
Sewall  and  Dow  and  sent  them  back  up  the 


70      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

river  with  the  boats.  The  start  for  Dickinson 
and  the  gaol  was  made  with  Mr.  Roosevelt  on 
foot  behind  the  waggon  with  his  cocked  gun 
over  his  shoulder.  He  knew  that  the  only  way 
to  prevent  the  men  from  overpowering  him 
was  to  remain  out  of  their  reach  and  to  keep 
his  gun  ready.  The  trail  over  the  prairie  was 
a  track  of  deep  mud  and  progress  was  slow. 
Night  overtook  the  party  at  a  small  hut,  where 
they  stopped.  The  prisoners  were  put  into 
the  upper  bunk,  from  which  it  would  not  be 
easy  for  them  to  get  out,  and  Mr.  Roosevelt 
mounted  guard  over  them,  seated  with  his  back 
against  the  cabin  door  all  night,  fighting 
sleep.  It  was  one  armed  man  against  three 
desperadoes  and  the  possible  treachery  of  his 
own  physical  exhaustion.  The  one  man  with  the 
gun  remained  master  of  the  situation  and  got 
his  prisoners  into  the  waggon  again  all  right  in 
the  morning  and  followed  them  into  town  on 
foot,  arriving  there  about  six  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  completely  exhausted  after  thirty- 
six  hours  without  sleep.  He  turned  them  over 


THE  WESTERN  MAN  71 

to  the  sheriff  with  a  statement  of  the  charge 
against  them.  Then,  after  making  up  his  lost 
sleep,  he  returned  to  his  ranch,  satisfied  that  he 
had  established  his  reputation  for  taking  care 
of  his  own  property. 

These  three  prisoners  were  the  last  of  the 
gang  of  outlaws  the  expulsion  of  whom 
from  that  part  of  the  country  had  been  be 
gun  some  time  before  the  skiff  was  stolen.  A 
meeting  of  the  cattle-men  had  been  held  in  the 
freight  shed  at  Medora  to  form  an  organisa 
tion  for  their  mutual  protection  against  the 
marauders.  It  had  been  openly  hinted  that  a 
certain  deputy  sheriff  was  in  collusion  with  the 
outlaws.  The  deputy  was  present  at  the  meet 
ing. 

After  the  preliminaries  of  organisation,  it  is 
said  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  rose  in  his  place  and 
addressed  the  deputy.  He  openly  accused  the 
man  of  dishonesty  and  incompetency,  and  ig 
noring  the  menace  of  the  officer's  revolver, 
the  handle  of  which  was  projecting  above  his 
belt,  he  expressed  his  scorn  of  him  as  a  man 


72      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

unworthy  and  unfit  for  the  office  which  he 
held.  In  the  history  of  that  part  of  the  coun 
try  such  a  speech  had  never  been  heard  be 
fore.  Few  men  would  have  had  the  courage  to 
make  such  an  accusation  in  such  a  company, 
and  many  of  those  present  held  their  breath 
till  they  saw  that  the  accused  man  dared  not 
retaliate.  He  sat  with  downcast  head  and  said 
not  a  word ;  but  his  prestige  was  gone  forever, 
and  it  was  not  long  before  another  deputy  suc 
ceeded  him. 

This  account  of  the  incident  has  had  wide 
currency,  and  in  the  course  of  my  efforts  to 
verify  it,  I  wrote  to  Mr.  William  W.  Sewall, 
who  was  one  of  the  men  to  assist  Mr.  Roose 
velt  in  arresting  Finnegan.  He  replied:  "I 
cannot  vouch  for  the  sheriff  story,  as  I  do  not 
remember  any  such  case.  Perhaps  it  has  some 
foundation,  but  has  been  magnified.  Many 
things  happened  to  which  we  did  not  attach 
particular  importance  at  the  time,  and  I  may 
have  forgotten.  He  [Roosevelt]  would  have 
done  it  if  he  had  deemed  it  necessary.  If  he 


THE  WESTERN  MAN  73 

did,  we  did  not  deem  it  very  dangerous.  Re 
marks  of  that  kind  might  have  been  made. 
We  three  [Roosevelt,  Sewall,  and  Dow]  were 
Eastern  men,  but  we  did  not  intend  to  be 
bluffed  and  were  not.  We  were  all  men  of 
peace,  but  did  not  intend  to  let  any  one  stand 
on  our  toes  until  they  trod  the  nails  off.  Mr. 
Roosevelt  is  not  that  kind  of  man  and  would 
not  have  had  us  with  him  if  we  had  been." 

There  were  other  things  in  this  Western  life 
besides  taming  bullies  and  defying  negligent 
officials.  The  business  there  was  raising  cattle 
and  taking  care  of  them  on  the  plains.  Mr. 
Roosevelt  rode  with  his  cowboys  and  was  as 
good  as  any  of  them.  On  the  round-up  he 
endured  all  sorts  of  hardships  with  his  men, 
riding  all  day  and  sleeping  on  the  ground  at 
night.  On  one  rainy  night  he  was  awakened 
by  the  report  that  his  cattle  were  being  driven 
before  the  storm  and  were  in  danger  of  stam 
peding.  Every  man  rushed  to  his  horse, 
saddled  him  and  rode  to  the  herd,  hoping  to 
head  it  off.  But  the  storm  raged  and  the 


74      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

cattle  continued  to  retreat  before  it,  at  first 
slowly,  but  as  the  thunder  grew  louder  the 
animals  began  to  show  terror,  and  it  was  not 
long  before  the  men  were  riding  for  their  life 
in  front  of  the  stampeding  brutes.  A  vivid 
flash  of  lightning  revealed  an  empty  corral 
not  far  away,  and  Mr.  Roosevelt  shouted  to 
the  two  men  near  him  to  make  an  opening  into 
it,  while  he  tried  to  guide  the  cattle  around  to 
it.  By  the  time  two  sections  of  the  fence  were 
down  Roosevelt  dashed  through  on  his  horse, 
with  the  maddened  animals  at  his  heels,  and 
he  barely  escaped  through  a  narrow  opening 
at  the  other  side.  The  herd  was  saved  with 
the  exception  of  a  few  animals  that  were 
trampled  to  death  in  the  struggle  to  get 
through  the  break  in  the  fence.  Then  the 
ranch-owner  and  his  men  rolled  themselves  in 
their  blankets  and  went  to  sleep  again. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  not  only  stood  the  test  when 
it  was  a  question  of  presence  of  mind  or  of 
physical  endurance,  but  also  when  it  was  a 
question  of  public  spirit.  It  was  while  on  a 


THE  WESTERN  MAN  75 

hunting  trip  with  three  other  men  that  he 
fought  a  fire  on  a  cattle  range  all  one  night 
that  he  might  save  the  grass  for  his  own  and 
his  neighbours'  cattle.  He  had  noticed  the 
fire  in  the  morning  away  to  the  southward, 
and  thought  it  was  too  far  off  to  be  of  concern 
to  him ;  but  in  the  afternoon  he  was  surprised 
to  see  it  bursting  out  not  more  than  a  mile 
away.  After  he  and  his  companions  had 
vainly  striven  to  turn  the  course  of  the 
flames  he  rode  off  to  seek  a  way  of  escape, 
but  the  fire  was  moving  so  rapidly  that  he 
soon  saw  that  their  only  way  out  would  be 
cut  off  before  they  could  reach  it.  He  has 
tened  back  to  the  men  and  the  hunting  waggon, 
which  he  found  on  the  lee  of  a  damp  stretch 
of  ground,  where  the  men  were  busily  engaged 
in  beating  down  the  grass,  so  that  when  the 
fire  passed  around  the  place  it  might  not  eat 
back  to  where  they  were.  They  succeeded  in 
saving  their  belongings,  as  the  fire  went 
around  them,  as  they  had  planned.  When  the 
wind  went  down  at  sunset  they  killed  a  stray 


76      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

steer  that  had  been  caught  for  the  purpose, 
and  split  the  carcass  open  down  the  centre. 
They  dragged  one  half  of  this  to  the  fire, 
which  was  now  eating  its  way  slowly  along  in  a 
line  not  much  broader  than  the  length  of  the 
steer's  body.  A  passageway  was  beaten 
through  the  flames  to  the  dry  grass  on  the 
other  side  and  one  of  the  horses  forced  through 
with  a  rope  attached  to  one  end  of  the  carcass. 
The  other  end  of  the  carcass  was  attached  to 
another  horse,  so  that  the  wet  and  bloody  flesh 
might  be  dragged  along  the  ground,  ex 
tinguishing  the  flames.  Mr.  Roosevelt  rode 
one  of  the  horses,  and  one  of  his  men  the  other, 
while  the  two  remaining  men  walked  behind 
and  stamped  out  what  few  sparks  were  left. 
They  continued  till  the  flesh  was  worn  off  the 
bones  and  the  backbone  broke.  Then  they 
got  the  other  half  of  the  carcass  and  used  it 
up  the  same  way,  working  all  night,  and  then 
stopping  only  because  they  were  completely 
exhausted.  They  made  a  heroic  effort,  but 
four  men  and  one  steer  carcass  were  not 


THE  WESTERN  MAN  77 

enough  to  put  out  a  fire  in  the  rough 
country. 

His  knowledge  of  the  West  has  served  him 
well  on  many  occasions.  It  has  enabled  him  to 
understand  the  needs  of  that  part  of  the  coun 
try  and  to  comprehend  the  minds  and  purposes 
of  its  citizens.  He  is  fond  of  them  and  grows 
enthusiastic  when  they  call  on  him.  When  a 
delegation  of  Montana  men  interested  in  an 
irrigation  project  were  presented  to  him  in 
February,  1906,  he  said  as  he  entered  the  room 
where  the  men  were: 

"If  the  proprieties  did  not  forbid,  a  whole- 
souled  yell  from  me  would  be  in  order  in  greet 
ing  you.  A  clean-cut  yell  is  the  proper  salu 
tation  for  you  men  of  Montana.  Montana  is 
like  home  to  me.  I  have  a  warm  spot  in  my 
heart  for  it.  Your  irrigation  plan  concerns 
the  Red  River  District.  I  have  hunted  all 
over  that  district.  I  will  do  all  I  can  for 
you." 

Another  Montana  delegation  called  on  him  in 
December  of  the  same  year  to  interest  him  in 


78      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

a  plan  for  breeding  horses  on  an  Indian  reser 
vation.  A  portfolio  of  photographs  of  the 
district  was  shown  to  him. 

"I  know  that  country  very  well,"  he  re 
marked  as  he  looked  over  it.  "And  those 
horses,  I  know  them  pretty  well,"  and  a  remi 
niscent  smile  broke  over  his  features. 

The  broad  and  vigorous  West  still  calls  to 
him  and  his  spirit  responds. 


THE  STRENUOUS  MAN 


THE  thing  which  impresses  one  most  in  con 
sidering  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  that  he  is  a  man  of 
abounding  vitality.  As  noted  in  a  previous 
chapter,  he  has  confessed  that  he  was  a  sickly 
boy.  He  determined  to  get  a  strong  body  as 
an  instrument  to  be  directed  by  his  mind,  and 
he  succeeded.  He  has  developed  all  his  mus 
cles  by  rigorous  training  and  has  expanded 
his  chest  till  his  capacious  lungs  are  qualified 
to  feed  his  blood  with  oxygen ;  and  his  vigor 
ous  heart  sends  that  rich,  vitalised  fluid 
through  his  big  neck  into  his  active  brain. 
And  the  result  is  what  has  come  to  be  known  as 
strenuosity. 

How  this  physical  vigour  displays  itself  in 
his  daily  life  has  been  remarked  by  many  ob 
servers  close  to  him.  A  notable  instance  of  his 
apparent  tirelessness  has  been  described  by 


90      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

Mr.  George  Gary  Eggleston,  who  called  on 
him  at  the  White  House  in  the  spring  of 
1902. 

"My  personal  visit  was  made  on  the  evening 
of  the  day  on  which  he  returned  from  his 
comet-like  trip  in  the  Carolinas,"  says  Mr. 
Eggleston.*  "He  had  got  back  to  Washing 
ton  in  the  morning  after  five  days  of  soul- 
wearying  travel,  still  more  wearying  speech- 
making  and  function-holding,  and  the  cease 
less  strain  of  social  and  every  other  sort  of  ex 
citing  experience.  Almost  any  other  man 
would  have  gone  to  bed  and  put  business 
aside  for  one  day  at  least.  Mr.  Roosevelt  had 
gone  to  his  desk,  instead,  to  clear  off  the 
work  accumulation  of  nearly  a  week.  He  had 
then  held  an  important  Cabinet  meeting,  re 
ceived  many  official  and  other  callers  who  had 
vexing  business  matters  to  discuss,  made  sev 
eral  appointments  to  office,  and  attended  to  a 
multitude  of  other  trying  affairs.  Yet,  when 
I  desired  to  withdraw  on  the  ground  that  he 
*New  York  Herald,  April  20,  1902. 


THE  STRENUOUS  MAN  81 

must  be  well-nigh  exhausted,  he  cheerily  an 
swered  : 

"  'Oh,  no,  I'm  not  at  all  tired.  In  fact,  I 
never  feel  much  of  weariness.  Light  a  cigar. 
I  want  to  talk  with  you  about  an  historical 
point  which  you  criticised  some  years  ago  in 
one  of  my  books.' 

"Fortunately  I  was  sitting  at  the  time  in  a 
well-armed  easy-chair,"  Mr.  Eggleston  con 
tinues,  "otherwise  I  think  I  might  have  fallen. 
Think  of  this  busy  man,  ceaselessly  engaged 
with  strenuous  public  affairs,  still  remember 
ing  that  poor  little  criticism  of  mine,  years 
after  it  was  written !  The  criticism  concerned 
a  minute  detail  of  very  small  consequence  in 
any  case,  yet  so  earnest  and  sincere  is  this 
man,  and  so  'strenuous'  in  all  that  he  does,  that 
he  remembered  the  point  perfectly,  and  men 
tioned  it  now  only  because  he  was  interested  to 
explain  to  me  how  he  had  been  led  into  the 
insignificant  little  error.  It  seemed  to  me 
that  in  this  incident  more  than  one  admirable 
quality  of  the  President's  mind  and  char- 


82      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

acter  were   revealed  in   a   very   enlightening 
way." 

An  earlier  record  of  the  way  he  employs  his 
time  was  made  by  a  man  who  accompanied 
him  on  his  tour  of  the  country  as  a  candidate 
for  the  Vice-Presidency  in  1900.  It  is  the 
schedule  of  a  day's  occupations,  and  for  vari 
ety  of  interest  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  it 
equalled  in  the  lives  of  any  other  two  men. 
Here  it  is: 

7  A.M. — Breakfast. 
7.30  A.M. — A  speech. 

8  A.M. — Reading  an  historical  work. 

9  A.M. — A  speech. 

10  A.M. — Dictating  letters. 

11  A.M. — Discussing  Montana  mines. 
11.30  A.M. — A  speech. 

12  M. — Reading  an  ornithological  work. 
12.30  P.M. — A  speech. 

1  P.M. — Lunch. 

1.30  P.M. — A  speech. 

2.30  P.M. — Reading  Sir  Walter  Scott. 

3  P.M. — Answering  telegrams. 
3.45  P.M. — A  speech. 

4  P.M. — Meeting  the  press. 
4.30  P.M. — Reading. 


THE  STRENUOUS  MAN  83 

5  P.M. — A  speech. 

6  P.M. — Reading. 

7  P.M. — Supper. 

8  to  10  P.M. — Speaking. 

11  P.M. — Reading  alone  in  his  car. 

12  P.M. — To  bed. 

He  was  practising  then  what  he  has  always 
preached.  One  version  of  his  gospel  of  life 
has  been  given  by  Major  W.  H.  H.  Llewellyn, 
of  Las  Cruces,  New  Mexico,  who  commanded 
a  company  in  the  regiment  of  Rough  Riders. 
The  Major  said  one  day  after  his  old  com 
mander  had  become  President : 

"The  Colonel  [he  will  always  be  Colonel  to 
the  Rough  Riders]  was  talking  the  other  day 
with  one  of  his  old  boys  who  has  come  out 
into  our  country  to  do  business,  and  he  said 
to  him : 

"  'Get  action ;  do  things ;  be  sane ;  don't  frit 
ter  away  your  time ;  create,  act,  take  a  place 
wherever  you  are  and  be  Somebody;  get  ac 
tion.' 

"That's  the  Colonel  all  over,"  continued  the 
Major.  "It's  the  story  of  his  own  life.  It's 


84      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

the  advice  he  gave  us  all  when  we  parted  with 
him  at  Montauk  Point.  Do  you  remember 
that  evening  in  the  camp  when  the  regiment 
stood  in  front  of  him,  and  the  parting  came? 
I  can  hear  him  say  now  as  he  did  then : 

"  'Remember  when  you  go  out  into  the  world 
to-morrow,  for  nine  days  you  will  be  regarded 
as  heroes,  and  then  you  will  have  to  take  your 
places  as  ordinary  citizens.  You  will  be 
judged  then  for  what  you  are,  what  you  do 
as  men,  not  as  to  what  you  have  been.  Don't 
get  gay.' ' 

The  Major  paused  a  moment,  and  then  con 
cluded,  reflectively:  "I've  seen  young  fellows 
in  our  clubs  sit  three  hours  discussing  the 
character  of  the  cork  in  a  polo  pony's  hoof. 
That  kind  of  action  the  Colonel  hates." 

Mr.  Roosevelt  is  happy  where  things  are  hap 
pening.  He  remarked  once  that  he  liked 
to  be  where  something  was  going  on,  and  that 
h*  generally  managed  to  make  something 
happen  where  he  was.  Danger  arouses  in  him 
a  keen  sense  of  enjoyment,  as  was  illustrated 


THE  STRENUOUS  MAN  85 

in  a  small  way  in  Victor,  Colorado,  during  the 
campaign  of  1900.  A  mob  tried  to  prevent 
him  from  speaking  there.  One  man  hit  him 
in  the  breast  with  a  piece  of  scantling  six 
feet  long  from  which  an  insulting  banner  had 
been  torn.  Another  man  tried  to  strike  him 
in  the  face,  but  was  prevented  by  a  miner.  The 
same  observer  who  recorded  the  routine  of  a 
day's  work  on  the  tour  said  afterward : 

"When  the  storm  of  the  mob  swept  up  to 
him  I  stood  on  the  lower  step  of  the  Pullman 
sleeper  with  George  W.  Ogden.  Ogden  ex 
claimed  : 

"'Seethe  Colonel's  face!' 

"I  looked.  Rocks  were  flying  over  him  and 
the  scantling  waved  savagely.  And  he?  He 
was  smiling  and  his  eyes  were  dancing;  and 
he  was  coming  ahead  to  safety  as  composedly 
as  though  he  were  approaching  the  entrance 
to  his  own  home  among  friends." 

When  it  was  all  over  he  exclaimed  enthusias 
tically  : 

"This  is  magnificent.    Why,  it's  the  best  time 


86      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

I've   had  since   I   started.      I   wouldn't   have 
missed  it  for  anything." 

He  seems  to  enjoy  everything  in  the  same  en 
thusiastic  way.  His  comment  after  he  was 
defeated  for  the  mayoralty  of  New  York  by 
Abram  S.  Hewitt  was  characteristic: 
"Well,  I've  had  a  bully  time,  anyway." 
His  interest  in  athletics  has  continued  since 
he  left  college,  as  those  realise  who  have  at 
tempted  to  keep  up  with  him  on  his  rides  or 
walks  about  Washington.  He  is  an  expert 
boxer  and  fencer ;  he  sits  a  horse  as  if  he  were 
part  of  the  animal ;  and  he  has  made  practical 
investigations  into  the  mysteries  of  jiu  jitsu, 
the  Japanese  art  of  self-defence.  In  his  youth 
he  played  football,  and  when  he  received  the 
team  of  the  Carlisle  Indian  School  at  the  White 
House  on  the  morning  after  the  Thanksgiving 
Day  game  in  1902,  he  proved  that  his  interest 
in  the  sport  still  survived.  He  had  read  the  ac 
count  of  the  game  in  the  morning  papers  and 
was  full  of  it  all  day,  talking  football  at  the 
Cabinet  meeting  and  with  nearly  every  one  he 


THE  STRENUOUS  MAN  87 

saw.  When  Mr.  W.  G.  Thompson,  who  had 
charge  of  the  Indians,  introduced  them  to  him, 
he  knew  all  about  them.  Johnson,  the  captain, 
was  presented  first. 

"Delighted,"  exclaimed  the  President,  grasp 
ing  his  hand.  "You  play  quarter  back.  The 
mass  play  of  your  team  was  splendid,  I  am 
delighted." 

Parker  came  next  and  was  greeted  in  a  simi 
lar  way,  according  to  the  account  of  the 
Washington  correspondents. 

"Your  play  was  brilliant.     You  made  three 
touchdowns,  didn't  you?  How  in  the  world  did 
you  do  it?" 
And  so  it  went  along  the  line.    The  President 

talked  football  with  every  man  in  the  party. 

Sometimes  he  would  call  back  one  of  them  to 

discuss  a  point  in  the  game.     Nearly  every 

man  was   asked  to  what  tribe  he   belonged. 

One  said  he  was  a  Kaw. 
"Yes,  Congressman  Curtis  belongs  to  that 

tribe,"  the  President  remarked.     "I'm  glad  to 

meet  a  fellow-tribesman  of  his." 


88      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

"You're  a  football  player,  that's  self-evi 
dent,"  he  remarked  as  he  looked  at  one  of  the 
boys  who  had  been  bruised  in  the  game.  To 
another  battered  pla}rer  he  said,  "I  see  with 
out  asking  that  you  played  yesterday,  and  it 
didn't  improve  your  beauty." 

The  stolid  Indian  smiled  cheerfully  at  this 
and  passed  on. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  made  every  one  of  them  feel  at 
his  ease.  He  knew  the  big  chiefs  in  some  of 
the  tribes  represented,  and  when  he  mentioned 
their  names  the  players  addressed  were  greatly 
pleased.  Most  of  the  Indians  have  adopted 
the  names  of  white  men,  and  the  President 
asked  these  what  they  were  called  by  their 
own  people. 

"No  need  to  ask  you,  Mr.  Tomahawk,"  said 
he,  beaming  on  the  right  guard.  "I  know 
what  yours  means." 

There  was  one  player  whose  Indian  name 
was  Bear.  When  the  word  was  spoken  the 
President  cried: 

"Delighted,"    and   grasped  the   boy's   hand 


THE  STRENUOUS  MAN  89 

warmly.  "I'm  well  acquainted  with  the  bear 
family.  I  met  some  of  them  in  Mississippi, 
and  I  know  Baer  of  the  Reading  Coal  Com 
pany.  He  is  harder  to  catch  than  any  of 
them.  You  are  built  like  a  football  player. 
I'm  glad  you  are  not  one  of  the  bears  I  chased 
in  Mississippi.  They  would  make  good  foot 
ball  players,  too." 

At  the  end  of  the  line  was  the  only  player 
who  was  not  an  Indian.  He  was  Exendine,  a 
full-blooded  Eskimo.  When  Mr.  Thompson 
presented  him,  the  President  reached  out  and 
crushed  the  youth's  chubby  hand  in  his  own 
and  said : 

"Delighted  to  meet  you.  I  congratulate  you 
on  coming  to  this  country  to  get  an  education. 
So  you  are  an  Eskimo?  I  don't  suppose  the 
coal  famine  worries  you  a  bit." 

He  was  unf eignedly  interested  in  these  young 
men,  not  only  because  they  were  Indians,  but 
because  they  were  developing  vigorous  bodies. 
Virility  always  appeals  to  him.  Way  back  in 
1890,  or  earlier,  he  was  preaching  it  in  so 


90      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

original  a  way  that  Mr.  T.  P.  O'Connor,  who 
was  visiting  this  country  at  the  time,  remem 
bered  him  and  his  gospel  through  the  interven 
ing  years  till  he  became  President.  Mr. 
O'Connor  said  in  September,  1901 : 

"I  never  had  the  pleasure  of  being  introduced 
to  President  Roosevelt,  but  I  had  an  oppor 
tunity  of  studying  him  pretty  closely  through 
an  evening  in  New  York.  There  were  three 
papers  read  by  three  different  speakers.  One 
was  by  a  wild  man — I  forget  his  name — who 
was  preaching  a  Know-nothing  crusade 
against  Germans,  Italians,  and  Irish  immi 
grants  ;  the  other  was  by  St.  Clair  McKelway, 
the  editor  of  the  Brooklyn  Eagle;  and  the 
third  was  by  Mr.  Roosevelt. 

"Though  it  is  eleven  years  ago,  I  have  a  very 
distinct  impression  of  the  speeches.  The  one 
in  particular  which  impressed  me  was,  curi 
ously  enough,  not  that  of  the  present  Presi 
dent,  but  that  of  the  editor.  I  never  heard  a 
wittier,  a  more  sensible  or  more  pulverising 
speech  than  that  of  St.  Clair  McKelway. 


THE  STRENUOUS  MAN  91 

With  perfectly  equable  temper,  showing  no 
passion  and  no  indignation,  though  he  felt 
both,  Mr.  McKelway  got  rid  of  the  frothy 
fulminations  of  the  Know-nothing  orator  un 
der  a  cannonade  of  chaff  mingled  with  sense, 
so  that  you  really  felt  pity  as  you  saw  the 
remains  of  the  narrow-browed  and  blatant 
fanatic  strewn  on  the  floor.  The  one  man 
who  could  have  made  such  a  speech  in  my 
experience  is  Sir  William  Harcourt ;  and 
I  am  not  sure  that  even  he  -  could  have 
made  it. 

"That  is,  perhaps,  the  reason  why  my  recol 
lection  of  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  not  so  clear  as  it 
might  be.  To  tell  the  truth,  he  was  eclipsed 
by  the  journalist.  But  still,  I  do  remem 
ber  the  speech ;  still  more  do  I  remember  the 
man.  One  sentence  was  characteristic  of  the 
one  and  the  other;  and  I  think  I  can  recall  it 
verbatim.  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  speaking  of  the 
undesirable  element  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  population  of  New  York,  and  he  signal 
ised  for  eminence  among  these  the  four  hun- 


92      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

dred  and  the  politicians.  And  then,  amid  the 
titters  of  a  well-dressed  and  self-restrained 
audience,  Mr.  Roosevelt  .proceeded  to  declare 
that  he  thought  the  politicians  much  less  un 
desirable  than  the  four  hundred.  'They  are 
more  vicious,'  said  Mr.  Roosevelt,  'but  they 
are  more  virile.' 

"It  is  curious  that  I  should  remember  that 
sentence  now;  and  perhaps  it  is  lucky,  for  it 
gives  the  key  to  the  whole  philosophy  of  the 
man  who  so  suddenly  and  so  tragically  has 
been  called  to  the  greatest  of  human  posi 
tions." 

It  certainly  is  a  novel  doctrine  that  mere  ani 
mal  vigour  is  a  good  thing  in  itself,  as  well 
as  for  the  potentialities  that  lie  in  it.  If  it 
were  preached  more  there  would  be  fewer  dys 
peptics  and  fewer  hypochondriacs  and  fewer 
men  with  brains  awry  because  they  receive  too 
little  nourishment  from  the  body.  If  Hamlet 
had  taken  more  out-door  exercise  he  would 
have  married  Ophelia,  led  a  revolution 
against  his  uncle  and  sat  on  the  throne  of 


THE  STRENUOUS  MAN  93 

Denmark  himself  instead  of  mooning  about 
the  possibilities  in  a  bare  bodkin. 

Mr.  Roosevelt's  own  virility  has  kept  his 
nerves  steady,  so  that  he  does  not  succumb  to 
physical  suffering,  as  appeared  at  the  time  of 
the  accident  in  Pittsfield,  Massachusetts,  on 
September  2,  1902,  when  the  carriage  in 
which  he  was  riding  was  demolished  by  an 
electric  car,  its  occupants  thrown  out,  and 
Craig,  the  special  Secret  Service  officer  trav 
elling  with  him,  killed.  Dr.  Lung,  who  reached 
the  President  first,  found  him  on  his  knees, 
raising  himself  uncertainly  from  the  grass, 
thirty  feet  from  the  smashed  carriage.  The 
doctor  threw  his  arms  about  him  and  lifted 
him  to  his  feet. 

"Where  do  you  feel  pain  ?"  the  doctor  asked, 
at  the  same  time  patting  the  President's  sides 
gently,  searching  for  broken  ribs. 

The  President  broke  away  from  him 
roughly. 

"I'm  all  right,"  he  said.  "Some  of  the  others 
are  badly  hurt ;  look  after  them." 


94      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

Mr.  Roosevelt's  jaw  was  set  in  an  expression 
that  no  man  who  has  seen  it  ever  forgets.  He 
felt  a  sense  of  outrage  at  this  sort  of  treatment 
for  himself  and  his  friends.  He  dived  into 
the  crowd  of  those  who  had  run  up  from  the 
Country  Club,  for  which  he  had  originally 
started,  and  sought  out  the  motorman,  who  was 
standing  behind  his  car  looking  stupidly  at 
the  mangled  body  of  Craig.  The  eight  wheels 
of  the  car  had  passed  over  him.  The  Presi 
dent  strode  up  to  the  motorman  with  his  fist 
doubled  and  shook  it  under  his  nose. 

"If  your  car  got  out  of  control,"  he  said  with 
his  voice  shaking,  "if  it  got  away  from  you, 
why,  then,  that  is  one  thing.  But  if  it  is  any 
thing  else,  this  is  a  damnable  outrage !" 

Then  suddenly  checking  himself  he  dropped 
on  one  knee  beside  Craig's  mangled  body. 

"Too  bad,  too  bad,"  he  said.  "Poor  Craig ! 
How  my  children  will  feel!"  Craig  was  the 
hero  of  the  Roosevelt  children. 

The  President's  face  was  badly  bruised  in 
this  accident,  and  the  bone  of  one  of  his  legs 


THE  STRENUOUS  MAN  95 

so  seriously  injured  that  two  operations  had  to 
be  performed  on  it  later — one  in  Indianapolis 
and  one  in  Washington — and  he  had  to  cut 
short  a  Western  trip  on  account  of  it.  But 
he  did  not  think  of  himself.  His  physicians 
had  to  do  that  for  him. 

The  nature  and  extent  of  the  injury  to  his 
leg  are  best  indicated  by  the  official  bulletins 
issued  concerning  them.  Before  the  President 
was  taken  to  the  hospital  in  Indianapolis  Mr. 
George  B.  Cortelyou,  then  Secretary  to  the 
President,  gave  out  this  statement : 

As  a  result  of  the  trolley  accident  at  Pitts- 
field,  Massachusetts,  the  President  received 
several  severe  bruises.  One  of  these,  on  the  left 
leg  between  the  knee  and  the  ankle,  has  devel 
oped  a  small  abscess.  The  President  is  entirely 
well  otherwise  and  has  continued  to  meet  the 
several  engagements  of  his  itinerary,  but  in 
view  of  the  continuance  of  the  abscess,  and  out 
of  an  abundance  of  caution,  Drs.  Oliver  and 
Cook,  of  Indianapolis,  were  requested  to  meet 
Dr.  Lung,  the  President's  surgeon,  at  Indian 
apolis,  Dr.  Richardson,  of  Washington,  D.  C., 
being  also  of  the  number.  In  the  opinion  of 


96      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

the  doctors  the  trouble  necessitates  an  opera 
tion,  which  they  think  should  be  performed 
at  once  at  St.  Vincent's  Hospital,  in  this  city. 
As  after  the  operation  the  President  will  re 
quire  entire  rest,  probably  for  at  least  ten  days 
or  two  weeks,  it  has  been  necessary  to  cancel 
all  the  remaining  engagements  of  this  trip, 
and  he  will  go  directly  from  Indianapolis  to 
Washington  this  evening.  The  physicians 
say  that  the  case  is  not  in  any  way  serious  and 
that  there  is  no  danger  whatever.  This  state 
ment  is  made  so  that  no  false  rumours  may 
disturb  the  people  and  that  they  may  be  au 
thoritatively  advised  of  the  exact  nature  of  the 
case. 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  operation  the  physi 
cians  authorised  the  following  statement : 

As  a  result  of  the  traumatism  (bruise)  received 
in  the  trolley  accident  at  Pittsfield,  Massa 
chusetts,  there  was  found  to  be  a  circumscribed 
collection  of  perfectly  pure  serum  in  the 
middle  third  of  the  left  anterior  tibial 
region,  the  sac  containing  about  two  ounces, 
which  was  removed.  The  indications  are  that 
the  President  should  make  speedy  recovery. 
It  is  absolutely  imperative,  however,  that  he 
should  remain  quiet  and  refrain  from  using 


THE  STRENUOUS  MAN  97 

the  leg.     The  trouble  is  not  serious,  but  tem 
porarily  disabling. 

The  injury  did  not  heal  as  rapidly  as  was 
desired,  and  on  September  28th  another  bul 
letin  was  issued,  describing  what  had  been 
done  to  bring  relief.  Here  it  is: 

Dr.  Newton  M.  Shaffer,  of  New  York, 
joined  the  President's  physicians  in  consulta 
tion  this  morning  at  ten  o'clock.  The  increase 
in  local  symptoms  and  a  rise  in  temperature 
rendered  it  necessary  to  make  an  incision  into 
a  small  cavity,  exposing  the  bone,  which  was 
found  to  be  slightly  affected.  Thorough 
drainage  is  now  established  and  the  physicians 
feel  confident  that  recovery  will  be  uninter 
rupted.  The  operation  was  performed  by 
Surgeon-General  Rixey,  assisted  by  Dr.  Lung, 
and  in  consultation  with  Surgeon-General 
O'Reilly  and  Doctors  Shaffer,  Urdo,  and  Stitt. 

The  next  day,  to  put  at  rest  various  alarm 
ing  rumours  about  the  President's  condition, 
the  following  official  statement  was  made: 

The  condition  of  the  wound  is  satisfactory. 
The  temperature  this  morning  is  normal.  The 


98      THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

patient  slept  well  and  at  present  is  occupying 
a  rolling  chair.  He  is  cheerful  and  from  the 
beginning  has  shown  neither  impatience  nor 
restlessness,  but  has  carried  out  the  directions 
of  the  physicians  with  scrupulous  care.  Since 
the  use  of  the  aspirating  needle  to  evacuate 
the  sac  on  the  22d  instant,  which  left  no 
wound,  there  has  been  no  operation  until 
yesterday. 

(Signed)   GEORGE  B.  CORTELYOU, 

Secretary  to  the  President. 
11  A.M.,  September  29,  1902. 

The  blow  must  have  been  painful,  indeed, 
when  it  was  received,  to  cause  such  grave  re 
sults ;  but  the  President  made  light  of  it  at 
the  time.  At  the  places  where  he  was  to  speak 
after  he  left  Pittsfield  he  explained  that  owing 
to  the  killing  of  his  faithful  friend,  Craig,  he 
could  not  talk  on  public  topics ;  and  later  in 
the  day,  in  referring  to  his  own  injuries,  he 
said: 

"In  my  salad  days  I  have  received  many 
worse  injuries  at  football,  polo,  and  other 
games,  and  I  would  have  been  ashamed  to  ac 
knowledge  that  I  felt  hurt.  If  it  were  not  for 


THE  STRENUOUS  MAN  99 

the  death  of  poor  Craig,  I  wouldn't  care  a 
snap  of  my  finger  for  what  has  happened." 

He  might  have  referred  to  his  stoicism  when 
his  bones  were  broken  and  not  merely  bruised, 
if  he  had  thought  fit.  For  he  astonished  his 
friends  then,  as  he  had  done  later  with  his 
apparent  indifference  at  Pittsfield.  It  hap 
pened  not  long  after  he  had  built  his  house  on 
Sagamore  Hill,  Oyster  Bay.  He  gave  a  hunt 
breakfast  to  the  Meadowbrook  Hunt  Club, 
and  after  it  was  over  set  out  with  his  fellow- 
huntsmen  for  a  ten-mile  "drag." 

Less  than  an  hour  later  a  friend  who  was  in 
specting  the  new  stables  saw  Mr.  Roosevelt 
ride  up.  He  noticed  that  his  host  had  liberal 
quantities  of  court-plaster  on  his  face,  that  he 
showed  some  blood,  that  he  had  his  right  hand 
tucked  between  two  buttons  of  his  waistcoat, 
and  that  when  he  dismounted  he  did  so  cau 
tiously. 

The  friend  began  to  think  that  he  had  had  a 
bad  fall,  but  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  so  cool  and 
played  so  unconcernedly  with  one  of  his 


100    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

children  that  was  being  wheeled  by  the  nurse 
near  the  stables  that  the  man  decided  that 
he  was  only  scratched.  And  that  was  what 
he  himself  said  when  asked  about  the 
matter. 

"Only  a  scratch — just  a  little  scratch." 

In  a  few  minutes  Mr.  Roosevelt  went  into  the 
house  and  his  guest  dismissed  the  incident  from 
his  mind.  A  quarter  of  an  hour  later  the  man 
was  standing  in  front  of  the  house  when  a 
horse,  covered  with  lather,  tore  up  the  drive 
way.  Its  rider,  a  well-known  Long  Island  doc 
tor,  pulled  up  at  the  steps  and  inquired: 

"How's  Mr.  Roosevelt?  Has  he  come 
home?" 

"What's  the  matter,  doctor?"  the  guest 
asked.  "Yes,  he  is  home,  but  as  far  as  I  can 
see  he  has  only  got  about  a  yard  of  court-plas 
ter  on  his  face.  He  can't  be  hurt  very  much, 
for  he  has  been  playing  with  his  baby  since  he 
came  back." 

The  doctor  looked  astonished,  and  exclaimed 
as  he  hurried  into  the  house: 


THE  STRENUOUS  MAN  101 

"Why,  man,  he  broke  his  arm  when  his  horse 
went  down !" 

A  few  days  later  the  same  friend  met  Mr. 
Roosevelt  with  his  arm  in  a  sling  on  Fifth 
Avenue  in  New  York. 

"Sorry  you  didn't  tell  me  the  other  day  that 
your  arm  was  broken,"  he  said.  "Perhaps  I 
could  have  helped  you." 

"Pooh!  Pooh!"  Mr.  Roosevelt  replied.  "It 
was  merely  a  scratch,"  and  turned  the  con 
versation. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  has  referred  to  this  accident  in 
an  essay  on  "Hunting  with  Hounds,"  in  the 
course  of  which  he  says : 

Before  there  had  been  a  chance  for  much  tail 
ing,  wre  came  to  a  five-bar  gate,  out  of  a  road 
— a  jump  of  just  four  feet  five  inches  from 
the  take-off.  Up  to  this,  of  course,  we  went 
one  at  a  time,  at  a  trot  or  hand-gallop,  and 
twenty-five  horses  cleared  it  in  succession  with 
out  a  single  refusal  and  with  but  one  mistake. 
Owing  to  the  severity  of  the  pace,  combined 
with  the  average  height  of  the  timber 
(although  no  one  fence  was  of  phenomenally 
noteworthy  proportions),  a  good  many  falls 


103    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

took  place,  resulting  in  an  unusually  large 
percentage  of  accidents.  The  master  partly 
dislocated  one  knee,  another  man  broke  two 
ribs,  and  another — the  present  writer — broke 
his  arm.  However,  almost  all  of  us  managed 
to  struggle  through  to  the  end  in  time  to  see 
the  death.  On  this  occasion  I  owed  my  broken 
arm  to  the  fact  that  my  horse,  a  solemn  animal 
originally  taken  out  of  a  buggy,  though  a 
very  clever  fencer,  was  too  coarse  to  gallop 
alongside  the  blooded  beasts  against  which  he 
was  pitted.  But  he  was  so  easy  in  his  gaits, 
and  so  quiet,  being  ridden  with  only  a  snaffle, 
that  there  was  no  difficulty  in  following  to  the 
end  of  the  run. 

On  another  occasion,  while  on  a  hunting  trip 
in  the  West,  he  was  thrown  from  a  bucking 
horse  at  the  beginning  of  a  day's  jaunt  and 
his  thumb  was  put  out  of  joint.  He  pulled 
the  dislocated  member  back  into  position  and 
remounted  and  rode  off,  making  no  further 
reference  in  his  account  of  the  trip  to  what 
was  an  extremely  painful  injury. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  now  takes  more  physical  ex 
ercise  than  any  other  man  in  Washington.  He 
outwalks  his  friends  and  outrides  them,  too. 


THE  STRENUOUS  MAN  103 

One  of  his  favourite  amusements  is  riding,  and 
he  likes  to  get  a  friend  to  go  with  him.  He 
sits  close  to  his  horse  in  the  Western  style  and 
makes  fun  of  his  acquaintances  who  have 
adopted  the  English  fashion  of  riding.  When 
Prince  Henry  of  Prussia  visited  Washington 
the  President  took  him  riding  through  the 
country  roads  about  the  capital  in  a  driving 
rain-storm.  Most  of  the  party  turned  back 
when  the  rain  became  heavy,  but  the  Prince 
and  the  President  kept  on,  each  seeming  to 
enjoy  the  battle  with  the  elements.  Indeed,  he 
seems  to  delight  in  testing  the  willingness  of 
his  friends  to  expose  themselves  to  the  weather. 
Not  long  after  Mr.  Robert  Bacon,  his  class 
mate  in  Harvard,  was  made  First  Assistant 
Secretary  of  State,  Mr.  Roosevelt  initiated 
him  into  the  strenuosities  of  life  in  Washing 
ton  under  the  present  administration.  He  in 
vited  Mr.  Gifford  Pinchot,  of  the  Forestry  Bu 
reau,  and  Mr.  Bacon  to  take  a  walk  with  him 
one  afternoon  at  the  close  of  a  busy  and  tiring 
day.  It  was  raining  hard  and  he  advised  them 


104    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

to  put  on  old  clothes.  Instead  of  following 
the  advice,  they  arrived  at  the  White  House 
dressed  as  usual.  Mr.  Roosevelt  met  them  in 
a  badly  worn  suit  with  a  slouch  hat  and  heavy 
shoes. 

The  three  started  out  in  the  rain.  Their 
walk  took  them  to  the  open  country,  where 
they  came  to  a  considerable  body  of  water. 
They  wished  to  cross  to  the  other  side,  but 
there  was  no  bridge  within  a  mile.  The 
President  told  Mr.  Bacon  that  he  could  go 
to  the  bridge  and  cross  and  meet  them  on 
the  other  side,  as  he  and  Mr.  Pinchot  would 
wade  over.  Mr.  Bacon  objected  and  declared 
that  if  the  others  waded  he  would  too. 

"Bully,"  shouted  the  President.  "Come  on, 
then!"  and  he  plunged  into  the  water,  that 
proved  to  be  so  much  deeper  than  he  antici 
pated  that  he  had  to  swim  for  some  distance, 
Bacon  and  Pinchot  following  after. 

A  few  weeks  before  this,  while  the  President 
was  still  at  his  Long  Island  home,  he  boarded 
the  submarine  boat  Plunger,  which  was  in  the 


THE  STRENUOUS  MAN  105 

harbour  at  Oyster  Bay,  and  spent  nearly  an 
hour  under  water.  He  desired  to  learn  for 
himself  how  the  submarines  behaved  when  in 
service.  The  day  was  stormy,  the  rain  falling 
in  sheets,  and  the  wind  kicked  up  a  choppy  sea. 
The  boat  was  put  through  various  manoeuvres 
by  Lieutenant  Nelson,  who  was  in  command. 
He  dived  to  the  bottom,  came  to  the  surface 
for  a  few  seconds  and  went  down  again;  he 
remained  stationary  under  water  writh  the 
lights  out,  turned  the  boat  around,  let  it  come 
to  the  surface  stern  foremost,  and  did  every 
thing  that  a  submarine  can  do.  The  Presi 
dent  himself  took  the  wheel  in  the  conning 
tower  and  with  the  assistance  of  Lieutenant 
Nelson  operated  the  boat,  making  it  rise  to 
the  surface  and  descend.  Finally  he  fired  a 
blank  torpedo  with  his  own  hand. 

His  abounding  physical  vitality  has  kept  him 
youthful  in  more  ways  than  one.  It  even 
affects  his  personal  tastes,  as  he  once  confessed 
to  Senator  Beveridge  and  Mr.  H.  H.  Kohlsaat. 
These  gentlemen  were  waiting  for  him  in  the 


106    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

large  room  adjoining  the  executive  office  when 
the  door  suddenly  burst  open  and  the  Presi 
dent,  in  his  riding  clothes,  hurried  into  the 
Cabinet  room.  Both  of  the  visitors  began 
laughing  simultaneously. 

"Well,  what  are  you  laughing  at?"  asked 
Mr.  Roosevelt  as  he  shook  hands  gaily  with 
them. 

"We  want  to  congratulate  you,"  said  one  of 
them. 

"On  what?" 

"Why,  on  the  necktie." 

Then  the  President  joined  heartily  in  the 
laughter  at  his  own  expense.  The  necktie 
would  have  attracted  attention  anywhere.  It 
was  a  four-in-hand  of  silk  with  three  bright 
coloured  stripes  of  red,  green,  and  yellow. 
Each  colour  stood  out  distinctly  from  the 
others,  and  the  tie  was  of  such  generous  pro 
portions  that  it  spread  over  a  large  expanse 
of  shirt-front  which  showed  above  a  rather 
low-cut  vest. 

The  President  defended  his  taste  in  selecting 


THE  STRENUOUS  MAN  107 

the  tic,  and  then  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye  he 
remarked : 

"Well,  you  know,  I  have  a  very  youthful 
side." 

He  certainly  has  no  more  hesitation  than  a 
healthy  boy  in  doing  things  that  appeal  to 
him.  This  has  made  it  easy  for  him  when  hunt 
ing  to  take  game  into  camp,  when  less  adven 
turous  hunters  would  have  been  unwilling,  if 
not  unable,  to  do  what  he  has  done.  While  at 
the  Keystone  Ranch  in  Colorado,  for  instance, 
on  a  hunting  trip,  he  and  his  guide  held  at 
bay  a  large  lion  in  a  crevice  on  the  precipi 
tous  side  of  a  rock  ledge  which  extended  from 
the  point  of  the  crevice  sheer  down  fifty  feet. 
Mr.  Roosevelt  shot  at  the  lion,  and  the  beast 
disappeared  under  a  perpendicular  wall  of 
rock.  A  large  slab  of  stone  projected  over  the 
rim  of  the  ledge,  and  if  one  of  the  men  could 
hang  head  first  over  this  slab  he  could  see  the 
lion  and  might  be  able  to  shoot  it. 

"The  question  which  confronted  us,"  said  the 
guide  in  telling  of  the  incident,  "was  how  to 


108    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

hang  over  the  rock.  Finally  Colonel  Roosevelt 
looked  at  me  intently  and  said,  'Goff,  we  must 
have  that  lion  if  he  is  there.  I'll  tell  you  what 
I'll  do.  I  will  take  my  gun  and  crawl  over 
that  rock.  You  hold  me  by  the  feet  and  let 
me  slide  down  far  enough  to  see  him.  If  I 
can  see  him  I  will  get  him.'  This  plan  was 
carried  out,  and  he  killed  the  lion,  hanging 
head  downward,  while  I  held  him  by  the 
feet." 

But  of  all  the  pictures  of  Mr.  Roosevelt, 
either  verbal  or  photographic,  the  one  which 
gives  the  best  and  most  vivid  impression  of  the 
vigorous  human  animal  rejoicing  in  his  vital 
ity  is  that  one  which  shows  him  mounted  on  a 
hunter  taking  a  fence.  Horse  and  rider  are 
instinct  with  life,  and  while  you  look  at  them 
they  seem  to  leap  out  of  the  paper  and  dash 
down  the  road  with  the  drum-beat  of  the 
hoofs  ringing  in  your  ears  as  they  disappear 
from  view. 

Mr.  John  Morley's  characterisation  of  him, 
after  spending  a  day  or  so  at  the  White 


THE  STRENUOUS  MAN  109 

House,  puts  in  words  what  the  photograph 
represents. 

"I  have  seen  two  tremendous  works  of  na 
ture,"  the  British  statesman  said;  "one  is 
Niagara  Falls,  and  the  other  is  the  President 
of  the  United  States." 

That  he  does  not  dislike  to  be  represented  as 
a  man  of  vigour  was  made  evident  in  the  sum 
mer  of  1905,  when  an  equestrian  statuette 
of  himself  as  a  Rough  Rider  by  Frederick 
MacMonnies  was  presented  to  him.  The  horse 
on  which  the  figure  is  mounted  is  leaping  into 
the  air  as  though  going  over  a  five-barred 
gate.  It  is  supported  in  this  position  by  a 
shield  bearing  the  inscription,  "Vi  Virtute 
Vir,"  which  may  be  loosely  translated,  "Vigor 
ous,  virtuous,  and  virile." 

"I  now  feel  myself  a  really  great  man,"  he 
said  laughingly  when  the  statuette  was  given 
to  him  by  Miss  Janet  Scudder,  a  pupil  of 
MacMonnies,  in  the  presence  of  Mrs.  Roose 
velt,  Admiral  and  Mrs.  Dewey,  and  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Charles  J.  Bonaparte.  "The  distinction 


110    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

of  'being  done'  by  either  St.  Gaudens  or  Mac- 
Monnies  might  flatter  anybody.  I  had  al 
ways  hoped  to  have  something  in  my  posses 
sion  by  MacMonnies,  but  it  never  occurred  to 
me  that  I  should  have  something  by  MacMon 
nies  of  me.  The  statuette  is  exactly  as  I 
should  like  to  have  it — the  cavalry  horse,  the 
Rough  Rider  clothes,  and  the  emblematic  sup 
port  to  the  whole." 

The  office  of  the  Presidency  makes  severe  de 
mands  upon  the  strength  of  its  occupants. 
Most  of  them  have  had  little  time  or  energy 
left  for  anything  else.  There  are  few  things, 
however,  in  which  Theodore  Roosevelt  does  not 
interest  himself.  He  might  well  use  for  his 
motto  the  famous  saying  of  Terence,  "Homo 
sum — humani  nihil  a  me  alienum  puto" — 
I  am  a  man  interested  in  all  that  concerns  my 
fellow-men.  It  is  necessary  to  review  his  extra- 
Presidential  activities  for  only  a  few  months 
to  discover  how  far  his  sympathies  extend. 

In  the  summer  of  1905  he  travelled  from  his 
home  at  Oyster  Bay  to  Coney  Island,  on  New 


THE  STRENUOUS  MAN  111 

York  Bay,  for  the  sole  purpose  of  visiting  a 
hospital  for  the  treatment  of  children  of  the 
poor  suffering  from  tuberculosis  of  the  bones. 
When  he  saw  what  benefit  the  children  derived 
from  the  sea  air  he  made  an  appeal  to  the  pub 
lic  for  the  support  of  the  institution.  Some 
months  later  he  took  time  to  write  to  the 
president  of  the  National  Mothers'  Congress : 

I  believe  so  heartily  in  the  Congress  of 
Mothers  that  I  will  break  through  my  rule  of 
not  writing  such  letters  to  wish  you  all  possible 
success  in  your  Mothers'  Congress  of  Georgia, 
which  is  your  native  State  and  was  the  native 
State  of  my  own  mother. 

This  solicitude  for  the  coming  generation, 
this  care  that  there  shall  be  men  and  women 
in  sympathy  with  American  ideals,  extends 
to  the  development  of  the  physical  bodies  of 
the  children.  In  August,  1905,  he  accepted 
the  honorary  vice-presidency  of  the  Public 
Schools  Athletic  League,  organised  to  secure 
systematic  athletic  drill  for  the  boys.  In  a  let 
ter  addressed  to  General  George  W.  Wingate, 


112    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

the  president  of  the  League,  he  said  the 
organisation  "is  performing  a  service  of  the 
utmost  importance,  not  merely  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  physical,  but  also  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  ethical  needs  of  these  school 
children."  He  wrote  further :  "I  am  also  par 
ticularly  pleased  that  you  are  about  to  organ 
ise  a  woman's  auxiliary  branch,  for  the  girls 
need  exercise  quite  as  much  as  the  boys." 

From  athletics  in  the  schools  in  August  his 
attention  was  transferred  in  the  autumn  to 
football  in  the  colleges.  In  October  he  invited 
representatives  of  the  athletic  interests  of 
Harvard,  Princeton,  and  Yale  Universities  to 
meet  him  at  the  White  House  to  consider  re 
forming  the  abuses  in  the  game,  and  in  No 
vember  he  had  Dr.  J.  W.  White  of  the  Uni 
versity  of  Pennsylvania  as  his  guest  when  he 
discussed  the  same  subject.  Dr.  White  re 
ported,  after  his  conference,  that  the  Presi 
dent  had  clear  and  positive  views  on  the  kind 
of  reforms  needed.  They  included  the  aboli 
tion  of  brutality  and  foul  play,  with  such 


THE  STRENUOUS  MAN  113 

power  given  to  the  umpire  as  would  permit 
him  to  order  from  the  field  not  only  individual 
players,  but  whole  teams  when  detected  in  bru 
tality  or  in  violation  of  the  rules  of  fairness ; 
and  he  urged  that  the  responsible  heads  of 
colleges  whose  teams  play  together  should 
have  a  "gentleman's  agreement"  to  secure  the 
enforcement  of  the  spirit  as  wrell  as  the  letter 
of  the  rules  intended  to  make  an  honourable 
defeat  more  glorious  than  an  unfairly  won 
victory. 

The  complete  history  of  the  President's  in 
tervention  in  the  war  between  Russia  and  Ja 
pan  has  not  yet  been  written ;  but  whether  he 
intervened  on  his  own  initiative,  or  whether  he 
acted  on  the  suggestion  of  some  one  else,  he 
had  the  time  and  the  strength  in  the  summer 
of  1905,  as  well  as  the  disposition,  to  attempt 
to  bring  two  warring  nations  together.  The 
Peace  of  Portsmouth  was  properly  the  Peace 
of  Theodore  Roosevelt — not  Roosevelt  the 
American  President,  but  Roosevelt  the  citizen 
of  the  world,  seeking  to  prevent  unnecessary 


114    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

bloodshed  and  using  the  prestige  of  the  high 
office  which  he  temporarily  holds  to  bring  to 
pass  the  results  which  the  man  desires. 

From  making  peace  he  turned  his  attention 
to  encouraging  Irish  industries,  for  he  wrote 
to  the  managers  of  an  Irish  industrial  fair  ex 
pressing  deep  interest  in  the  whole  exhibition, 
but  particularly  in  that  part  of  it  which  was 
intended  to  interpret  the  Irish  revival,  or  the 
revival  of  the  study  of  the  ancient  Celtic 
language.  A  few  weeks  later  he  sent  a  signed 
photograph  of  himself  to  the  Manhattan 
Chess  Club,  to  go  to  the  winner  in  the  cable 
chess  match  between  that  club  and  the  Berliner 
Chess  Society.  In  December  he  sent  a  mes 
sage  of  appreciation  and  congratulation  to 
be  read  at  the  dinner  in  honour  of  the  seven 
tieth  anniversary  of  the  birth  of  Mark  Twain, 
and  in  the  same  month  he  had  as  his  guest  in 
Washington  Herr  Engelbert  Humperdinck, 
the  composer  of  "Hansel  and  Grctcl,"  with 
whom  he  discussed  music  and  German  litera 
ture.  And  at  about  this  time  he  was  interest- 


THE  STRENUOUS  MAN  115 

ing  himself  in  securing  for  the  National  Art 
Gallery  the  superb  collection  of  paintings  by 
Whistler  owned  by  Mr.  Charles  L.  Freer,  of 
Detroit. 

When  Mr.  Walter  Wellman  sailed  from  New 
York  in  the  spring  of  1906  to  arrange  for  an 
attempt  to  reach  the  North  Pole  by  balloon, 
Mr.  Roosevelt  sent  to  him  a  telegram  of  good 
wishes ;  and  when  the  Americans  won  a  vic 
tory  at  the  Olympic  games  in  Greece,  he  tele 
graphed  to  the  manager  of  the  team : 

Hearty  congratulations  to  you  and  the 
American  contestants.  Uncle  Sam  is  all  right. 

At  his  suggestion,  a  race  between  Ameri 
can  and  German  yachts  was  arranged  for 
the  early  autumn  of  1906,  and  after  the 
race  he  presented  the  prize,  a  cup  called  after 
him,  to  Commodore  Trenor  L.  Park,  owner 
of  the  Vim,  the  successful  boat.  His  activities 
have  extended  even  to  an  attempt  to  reform  the 
spelling  of  the  English  language. 


VI 

THE  HUMAN  MAN 


SPECULATE  as  men  will  about  the  purpose  of 
life,  and  strain  as  they  may  on  the  cords  which 
bind  them  to  the  elemental  facts,  one  truth 
remains.  The  organisation  of  society  is  based 
on  the  sanctity  of  the  family,  on  the  anticipa 
tion  of  offspring,  and  on  the  importance  of 
safeguarding  the  future  for  the  benefit  of 
those  that  shall  come  after.  Practically  all 
our  progress  has  come  because  men  have 
sought  to  improve  the  conditions  of  life  for 
•Hheir  children.  This  desire  has  built  railways, 
has  equipped  factories,  has  painted  pictures, 
has  erected  splendid  buildings,  to  say  nothing 
of  endowing  colleges  and  founding  scholar 
ships  for  the  immediate  benefit  of  the  younger 
generation. 

The  child  with  the  morning  in  his  face  is  the 
motive  of  the  man  and  the  woman,  and  in  a 


THE  HUMAN  MAN  117 

very  real  sense  the  babe  is  leading  the  world. 
There  is  a  divine  allegory  in  the  singing  of 
the  angels  in  celebration  of  the  Advent  of  the 
Child  in  Bethlehem,  as  well  as  in  the  pilgrim 
age  of  the  Wise  Men  to  do  homage  with  pre 
cious  gifts  before  the  cradle  of  the  New  Born. 
Whatever  else  it  was,  the  Great  Miracle  put 
the  divine  seal  upon  the  lesser  miracle  of  the 
advent  of  the  humblest  child  with  its  guaran 
tee  of  racial  continuity. 

In  these  days  of  the  restless  woman,  seeking 
out  her  mission  in  the  world,  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
glorification  of  fatherhood  and  motherhood 
attracts  attention,  because  in  some  circles  it 
has  been  assumed  that  human  ingenuity  could 
devise  a  better  occupation  for  women  than 
training  their  children  into  unselfish  and  help 
ful  men.  and  women  ready  to  take  up  the  work 
of  the  world  where  their  elders  leave  it.  This 
is  only  one  of  many  instances  of  his  grasp  of 
the  elemental  virtues  and  of  his  courage  in 
urging  the  importance  of  what  men  sometimes 
overlook  because  it  is  so  common.  He  is  not 


118    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

ashamed  to  show  his  fondness  for  chil 
dren,  and  is  touched  when  they  respond. 
Mr.  Eggleston,  whose  wonder  at  his  tire- 
lessness  we  have  seen  expressed,  says  in 
further  description  of  what  happened  during 
his  call: 

"There  was  a  glisten  as  of  tears  in  his  eyes 
when  I  told  him  the  other  evening  that  a  stal 
wart  boy  had  recently  said  to  me : 

"  'Anyhow,  Mr.  Roosevelt  always  stands  for 
us  boys  when  we  want  to  do  things.' 

"I  had  seen  him  receive  a  boy  a  few  days  be 
fore,"  Mr.  Eggleston  continues.  "The  boy, 
a  fine  lad  with  a  head  that  meant  something, 
had  come  with  his  father  to  be  'presented.' 
The  father  was  received  cordially.  The  boy 
was  almost  embraced.  The  President  took  him 
by  the  shoulders  in  caressing  fashion  and 
talked  with  him  as  any  good-natured  senior  in 
a  school  might  do  with  a  new  scholar  who 
pleased  his  fancy.  The  boy  had  looked 

abashed  and  terrified  before  his  presentation. 

When  it  was  over  he  seemed  to  me  to  be  the 


THE  HUMAN  MAN  119 

happiest  boy  in  the  world — with  the  excep 
tion,  perhaps,  of  Mr.  Roosevelt." 

Two  little  girls  were  going  to  Oyster  Bay  to 
visit  their  grandmother  for  a  second  time  while 
Mr.  Roosevelt  was  at  his  home  there  in  the 
summer  of  1903.  When  asked  if  they  had  seen 
the  President,  one  of  them  responded : 

"Of  course  I  have.  He  goes  by  our  house 
almost  every  day.  He  always  waves  his  hand 
and  takes  off  his  hat  to  me." 

"To  you !"  exclaimed  the  other  child.  "He 
takes  off  his  hat  to  all  of  us." 

"Well,  he  may  do  that,  but  he  smiles  at  me. 
I  know  he  does,  because  we  are  acquainted. 
I  was  on  the  fence  one  day,  alone,  and  he  went 
by  on  horseback.  He  leaned  over  and  said, 
'How  do  you  do,  little  girl?  What  is  your 
name?'  'Ethel,  sir,'  I  said.  And  after  that 
he  always  smiles  at  me,  because  he  knows 
me." 

One  day  he  was  sitting  in  his  library  there, 
talking  over  public  affairs  with  a  friend,  when 
a  lot  of  boys  entered  the  room. 


120    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

"Uncle  Teddy,"  said  one,  respectfully,  "it's 
after  four." 

"So  it  is,"  responded  Mr.  Roosevelt,  looking 
at  the  clock.  "Why  didn't  you  call  me  sooner? 
One  of  you  boys  get  my  rifle." 

Then  he  turned  to  his  guest  and  added,  "I 
must  ask  you  to  excuse  me.  We'll  talk  this 
out  some  other  time.  I  promised  the  boys  I'd 
go  shooting  with  them  after  four  o'clock, 
and  I  never  keep  boys  waiting.  It's  a  hard 
trial  for  a  boy  to  wait." 

Then  he  walked  off  down  the  lawn  with  a 
crowd  of  boys  surrounding  him,  all  talking  at 
the  same  time  and  appealing  constantly  to 
"Uncle  Teddy." 

A  wholesome  woman  who  had  called  to  see 
him  in  Washington  in  connection  with  public 
business,  said,  as  she  was  leaving,  that  his  con 
ception  of  family  life  was  beautiful,  and  added 
that  she  thought  his  children  must  be  a  great 
pleasure  to  him. 

"Pleasure !"  he  said  with  a  smile ;  "you  would 
be  surprised  and  perhaps  shocked  if  you  could 


THE  HUMAN  MAN  121 

see  the  President  of  the  United  States  engaged 
in  a  pillow  fight  with  his  children.  But  those 
fights  are  the  joy  of  my  life." 

During  the  special  session  of  Congress  in 
November,  1903,  it  became  necessary  to  ap 
point  a  Federal  Judge  in  one  of  the  Western 
States.  The  President  believes  that  it  is  right 
to  consult  the  Congressmen  from  the  State 
in  which  an  appointment  is  to  be  made.  The 
Congressmen  from  this  State  had  not  been 
able  to  agr/ee  on  a  man  for  the  vacancy. 
The  supporters  of  one  candidate  had  charged 
that  the  candidate  of  another  group  was 
guilty,  among  other  things,  of  playing  poker 
with  many  lawyers  and  winning  their  money. 
It  was  said  that  such  a  man  could  not  be 
trusted  to  make  an  impartial  judge  when 
these  lawyers  were  practising  before  him. 
The  President,  however,  would  not  rule  this 
man  from  consideration  just  then,  and  in 
sisted  that  the  Congressmen  should  agree 
among  themselves. 

One  afternoon,  while  they   were   in   caucus 


122    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

together,  one  of  the  Republican  leaders  of  the 
State  went  to  the  White  House  and  talked  to 
the  President  about  the  case.  In  the  course  of 
the  interview  he  told  Mr.  Roosevelt  how  dis 
tressed  the  candidate's  family  was  over  the 
charges  against  him,  and  exhibited  a  letter 
which  the  man,  who  was  in  Washington  look 
ing  after  his  own  interests,  had  received  from 
his  young  daughter  at  home.  The  letter  read : 

DEAR  PAPA  :  Why  don't  you  go  to  the  Presi 
dent  and  tell  him  about  it?  If  he  sees  your 
face  he  will  never  believe  those  nasty  charges. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  took  a  rose  from  among  the 
flowers  on  his  table  and  handed  it  to  his  caller. 

"I  wish,"  said  he,  "that  you  would  send  that 
flower  to  that  daughter  and  tell  her  I  like  a 
young  girl  who  has  that  kind  of  faith  in  her 
father." 

At  this  moment  a  messenger  from  the  De 
partment  of  Justice  came  in  and  presented  a 
paper  to  the  President.  It  was  a  note  from 
Attorney-General  Knox,  stating  that  at  the 


THE  HUMAN  MAN  123 

President's  command  he  had  investigated  the 
charges  against  the  man  and  found  them  un 
true.  The  President  showed  the  note  to  the 
State  leader  and  then,  sitting  down,  wrote  out 
the  candidate's  nomination  and  sent  it  at  once 
to  the  Senate. 

The  combination  of  a  loyal  daughter  de 
fending  her  father  against  unjust  charges 
made  an  appeal  not  to  be  resisted.  On  an 
other  occasion  executive  action  was  prompted 
by  an  appeal  to  prevent  the  separation  of  the 
members  of  an  immigrant  family.  This  was 
in  the  case  of  two  Syrian  children  whose 
father  came  to  this  country  in  1902.  He  left 
his  wife  and  family  behind,  planning  to  send 
for  them  later.  He  settled  in  Worcester, 
Massachusetts,  and  declared  his  intention  of 
becoming  a  citizen.  Within  a  year  he  had 
saved  money  enough  to  bring  his  family  to  the 
United  States.  They  sold  their  small  belong 
ings  in  Turkey  and  started  for  America. 
When  they  arrived  in  New  York  they  were 
met  by  the  husband  and  father,  and  the  family 


124    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

reunion  was  joyous.  They  were  all  to  live  to 
gether  in  the  land  of  freedom  and  could  hardly 
wait  till  the  inspection  officers  had  admitted 
them. 

Then  came  the  tragedy.  The  children  could 
not  pass  the  medical  examination.  While  on 
board  they  had  contracted  some  disease  of  the 
eyelids,  said  to  be  contagious,  and  they  must 
go  back  on  the  steamer  which  brought  them. 
The  mother  might  remain  here.  Indeed,  she 
would  have  to,  as  there  was  not  money  enough 
left  to  pay  her  way  back  to  her  own  country. 
And  if  she  went  back  she  would  have  no  place 
to  which  to  go.  There  are  many  such  trage 
dies  at  the  immigration  office.  The  inspectors 
are  used  to  them  and  their  indifference  made 
the  thing  seem  harder  to  bear. 

"Is  it  nothing  to  you  that  I  have  spent  my  all 
to  bring  my  family  here,  where  there  is  oppor 
tunity  for  every  man,  and  now  find  that  for 
reasons  beyond  our  control  my  innocent  young 
children  must  be  torn  from  their  mother?"  is 
what  the  man  said,  in  effect,  wondering  at  the 


THE  HUMAN  MAN  125 

heartlessness    of    the    letter    of    the    regula 
tions. 

But  he  hastened  to  get  assistance.  Through 
a  friend  he  interested  Mr.  Rockwood  Hoar, 
of  Worcester,  son  of  Senator  Hoar.  Mr. 
Hoar  assured  the  immigration  authorities  that 
a  bond  would  be  given  to  guarantee  that  the 
children  would  not  become  public  charges. 
When  the  authorities  refused  to  accept  any 
bond,  he  persuaded  his  father  to  use  his  in 
fluence.  The  Senator,  in  his  turn,  urged  that 
the  children  be  admitted,  telling  the  officers 
that  their  father  was  an  industrious  man,  fully 
capable  of  taking  care  of  his  family.  He  re 
ceived  word,  in  reply,  that  the  terms  of  the  law 
were  explicit  and  that  the  children  with  the 
diseased  eyes  would  be  sent  back  on  the  follow 
ing  Thursday,  when  the  steamer  that  brought 
them  sailed.  Exceptions  had  been  made  in 
the  past  in  favour  of  special  cases  and  trouble 
had  always  followed.  The  Senator  then  tele 
graphed  a  statement  of  the  case  to  the  officers 
in  Washington,  but  the}7  replied  that  nothing 


126    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

could  be  done ;  it  was  contrary  to  public  policy 
to  make  an  exception  in  favour  of  any  one. 
He  then  telegraphed  to  Senator  Lodge,  who 
was  in  Washington,  and  Mr.  Lodge  made  an 
unsuccessful  appeal  at  the  Treasury  Depart 
ment.  This  was  on  Tuesday.  Mr.  Hoar  tele 
graphed  to  the  President  on  Wednesday  morn 
ing,  explaining  the  situation  and  saying  that 
if  an  exception  were  ever  allowable,  it  ought  to 
be  made  in  this  case ;  and  that  the  naturalisa 
tion  laws,  which  gave  to  the  minor  children  of 
naturalised  citizens  the  same  rights  as  their 
parents,  ought  not  to  be  nullified  by  the  immi 
gration  laws,  or  the  execution  of  those  laws. 
In  less  than  half  an  hour  after  the  receipt  of 
the  despatch,  a  message  left  the  White  House 
ordering  the  New  York  immigration  officers 
to  admit  the  children  at  once. 

The  President  believed  that  whatever  might 
be  the  terms  of  the  law,  its  provisions  did  not 
extend  to  such  cases,  and  acted  accordingly. 
There  has  seldom  been  a  finer  example  of  the 
genuineness  of  American  democracy.  The 


THE  HUMAN  MAN  127 

highest  executive  power  in  the  land  reached 
down  to  put  into  the  mother's  arms  the  suffer 
ing  child,  barred  out  by  the  officers  who  had 
decided  to  enforce  the  letter  rather  than  the 
spirit  of  the  law.  It  was  the  appeal  of  the 
child  to  the  elemental  man. 

When  the  President  was  in  Worcester  a  few 
months  later,  he  asked  about  the  children,  and 
they  were  taken  to  him  at  Senator  Hoar's 
house,  where,  the  ailment  of  their  eyes  entirely 
cured,  they  looked  the  gratitude  which  their 
tongues,  untrained  in  English,  could  not 
speak. 

The  President  frequently  shows  an  interest 
in  the  families  of  the  men  he  meets.  When 
the  train  reached  Nebraska  on  one  of  his  tours 
of  the  country,  Governor  John  H.  Mickey 
joined  the  party  to  escort  it  across  the  com 
monwealth.  The  President  was  delighted  to 
meet  him  and  asked  many  questions,  ending 
with: 

"How  many  children  have  you,  Governor?" 

"Nine,"  the  Governor  replied. 


128    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

"You  are  a  mighty  good  man,"  said  the 
President  with  evident  delight.  "You  are  a 
better  man  than  I  am.  I  have  had  only  six." 

We  have  seen  his  attitude  toward  children 
and  toward  the  fathers  and  mothers.  His 
theories  on  the  subject  of  safeguarding  the 
future  of  the  race  were  set  forth  in  a  letter 
to  Mrs.  John  Van  Vorst,  who,  in  collabora 
tion  with  Miss  Marie  Van  Vorst,  had  recently 
written  a  remarkable  book  on  the  trials  of 
working  women.  It  is  better  to  present  them 
in  full  than  to  summarise  them.  He  wrote: 

WHITE  HOUSE, 
WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  October  18,  1902. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  VAN  VORST:  I  must  write  to 
you  to  say  how  much  I  have  appreciated  your 
article '"The  Woman  Who  Toils."  But  to 
me  there  is  a  most  melancholy  side  to  it,  when 
you  touch  upon  what  is  fundamentally  in 
finitely  more  important  than  any  other  ques 
tion  in  this  country — that  is,  the  question  of 
race  suicide,  complete  or  partial. 

An  easy,  good-natured  kindliness,  and  a  de 
sire  to  be  "independent" — that  is,  to  live  one's 
life  purely  according  to  one's  own  desires — 


THE  HUMAN  MAN  129 

are  in  no  sense  substitutes  for  the  fundamental 
virtues,  for  the  practice  of  the  strong  racial 
qualities,  without  which  there  can  be  no  strong 
races — the  qualities  of  courage  and  resolution 
in  both  men  and  women,  of  scorn  of  what  is 
mean,  base,  and  selfish,  of  eager  desire  to  work 
or  to  fight  or  to  suffer,  as  the  case  may  be, 
provided  the  end  to  be  attained  is  great 
enough,  and  the  contemptuous  putting  aside 
of  mere  ease,  mere  vapid  pleasure,  mere  avoid 
ance  of  toil  and  worry. 

I  do  not  know  whether  I  most  pity  or  most 
despise  the  foolish  and  selfish  man  or  woman 
who  does  not  understand  that  the  only  things 
really  worth  having  in  life  are  those  the  ac 
quirement  of  which  normally  means  cost  and 
effort.  If  a  man  or  woman,  through  no  fault 
of  his  or  hers,  goes  throughout  life  denied  of 
those  highest  of  all  joys,  which  spring  only 
from  home  life,  from  the  having  and  bringing 
up  of  many  healthy  children,  I  feel  for  them 
deep  and  respectful  sympathy — the  sympathy 
one  extends  to  the  gallant  fellow  killed  at  the 
beginning  of  the  campaign,  or  the  man  who 
toils  hard  and  is  brought  to  ruin  by  the  fault 
of  others. 

But  the  man  or  woman  who  deliberately 
avoids  marriage  and  has  a  heart  so  cold  as  to 
know  no  passion  and  a  brain  so  shallow  and 


130     THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

selfish  as  to  dislike  having  children,  is  in  effect 
a  criminal  against  the  race,  and  should  be  an 
object  of  contemptuous  abhorrence  by  all 
healthy  people. 

Of  course  no  one  quality  makes  a  good 
citizen,  and  no  one  quality  will  save  a  nation. 
But  there  are  certain  great  qualities  for  the 
lack  of  which  no  amount  of  intellectual  bril 
liancy  or  of  material  prosperity  or  of  easiness 
of  life  can  atone,  and  which  show  decadence 
and  corruption  in  the  nation  just  as  much  if 
they  are  produced  by  selfishness  and  coldness 
and  ease-loving  laziness  among  comparatively 
poor  people  as  if  they  are  produced  by  vicious 
or  frivolous  luxury  in  the  rich. 

If  the  men  of  the  nation  are  not  anxious  to 
work  in  many  different  ways,  with  all  their 
might  and  strength,  and  ready  and  able  to 
fight  at  need,  and  anxious  to  be  fathers  of 
families,  and  if  the  women  do  not  recognise 
that  the  greatest  thing  for  any  woman  is  to 
be  a  good  wife  and  mother — why,  that  nation 
has  cause  to  be  alarmed  about  its  future. 

There  is  no  physical  trouble  among  us  Ameri 
cans.  The  trouble  with  the  situation  set  forth 
is  one  of  character,  and  therefore  we  can  con 
quer  it  if  we  only  will. 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT. 


THE  HUMAN  MAN  131 

The  human  side  of  the  man  does  not  mani 
fest  itself  in  friendliness  toward  children  alone. 
His  sympathies  are  broad  enough  to  take  in 
all  ages  and  conditions.  When  Henry  C. 
Payne,  Postmaster-General,  died  in  Washing 
ton,  October  4,  1904,  Mr.  Roosevelt  stopped 
a  moment  to  talk  with  a  group  of  newspaper 
correspondents  as  he  was  leaving  the  house  of 
death.  He  asked  them  if  they  had  known 
Mr.  Payne,  and  when  they  nearly  all  replied 
in  the  affirmative,  he  said : 

"He  was  the  sweetest,  most  lovable,  and  most 
trustful  man  I  have  ever  known." 

His  telegram  of  sympathy  to  Mrs.  Quay,  on 
the  death  of  her  husband  earlier  in  the  same 
year,  was  similar.  He  wrote: 

MRS.  M.  S.  QUAY,  Beaver,  Penn. : 

Accept  my  profound  sympathy,  official  and 
personal.  Throughout  my  term  as  President, 
Senator  Quay  had  been  my  staunch  and  loyal 
friend.  I  had  hoped  to  the  last  that  he  would, 
by  his  sheer  courage,  pull  through  his  illness. 
Again  accept  my  sympathy. 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT. 


133    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

His  tribute  to  the  men  who  were  killed  by  the 
explosion  of  a  gun  on  the  warship  Missouri, 
in  the  spring  of  1904,  was  even  more  emphatic. 
It  was  made  in  a  letter  to  Secretary  Moody, 
of  the  Navy  Department,  accompanying  a 
cheque  for  one  hundred  dollars.  Here  is  the 
letter: 

MY  DEAR  MR.  SECRETARY:  May  I  send 
through  you  this  contribution  to  be  used  for 
the  dependent  kinsfolk  of  the  enlisted  men 
who  have  just  been  killed  on  board  the  Mis 
souri?  Under  the  conditions  of  modern  war 
fare,  in  order  efficiently  to  prepare  for  war, 
risk  must  be  run  similar  in  kind,  though  not 
in  degree,  to  the  risk  run  in  battle,  and  these 
men  have  died  for  their  country  as  much  as 
if  the  ship  had  been  in  action  against  the 
enemy. 

Sincerely  yours, 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT. 

It  is  the  human  side  of  the  man  that  makes 
him  believe  that  good  government  is  more  than 
a  matter  of  enforcement  of  abstract  theories. 
It  must  in  some  way  make  human  fellowship 
an  easier  and  a  less  restricted  enjoyment. 


THE  HUMAN  MAN  133 

There  is  the  case  of  Peter  Kelley,  for  instance. 
Kelley  was  a  young  Brooklyn  lawyer  who  was 
sent  to  the  New  York  Legislature  by  the 
Democrats  in  1883,  when  Mr.  Roosevelt  was 
serving  in  that  body.  Kelley  attached  himself 
to  Roosevelt,  and  the  two  worked  together  for 
those  things  in  which  both  believed.  The 
Brooklyn  Democratic  organisation  was  not 
pleased  with  Kelley's  independence  and  he  was 
not  renominated.  He  had  given  so  much  atten 
tion  to  his  legislative  duties  that  his  law  prac 
tice  suffered  and  he  could  not  get  it  back 
again.  As  time  went  on  he  fell  ill,  and  his 
landlord  threatened  to  evict  him  for  non 
payment  of  rent.  Mr.  Roosevelt  heard  of  the 
matter,  and  sent  a  cheque  for  several  hundred 
dollars  to  Kelley,  with  a  message  telling  him 
to  consider  it  as  a  loan  to  be  repaid  at  his 
convenience.  Kelley  accepted  it  in  the  spirit 
in  which  it  was  offered. 

Then  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  asked  to  speak  at  a 
meeting  in  Brooklyn,  held  some  time  after  the 
mayoralty  election  in  1887.  He  said  as  he 


134    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

arose,  "You  wish  me  to  talk  about  civic  reform 
and  good  citizenship,  I  suppose." 

Some  voices  were  heard  saying  "Yes,"  and 
"That  is  what  we  came  for." 

"Then,"  said  he,  "I  will  tell  you  about  one 
of  your  own  neighbours,  my  friend  Peter 
Kelley.  He  is  a  Democrat,  while  I  am  a  Re 
publican,  but  honesty  in  public  service  knows 
no  party  lines.  The  first  duty  of  decent 
citizenship  is  to  stand  by  a  good  man  when 
you  have  found  him ;  that  is  the  only  way  you 
can  keep  popular  government  respectable,  and 
the  people  of  Brooklyn  have  not  stood  by 
Peter  Kelley." 

Then  he  told  the  story  of  Kelley's  record  in 
the  Legislature  and  of  the  treatment  which  he 
had  received  from  his  party  at  home,  and 
aroused  so  much  admiration  and  sympathy  for 
the  man  that  it  began  to  look  as  if  he  would 
have  clients  enough  in  the  future.  And  Alfred 
C.  Chapin,  who  had  just  been  elected  mayor, 
offered  to  appoint  Kelley  to  a  city  office. 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  appeal  to  the  humanity  of  his 


THE  HUMAN  MAN  135 

audience  came  too  late,  as  Kelley  died  that 
night. 

Probably  the  finest  illustration  of  Mr.  Roose 
velt's  admiration  for  the  splendid  human  traits 
in  the  men  with  whom  he  has  been  associated 
is  found  in  the  tribute  which  he  paid  to  Leonard 
Wood,  William  H.  Taft,  and  Elihu  Root  in  his 
speech  at  the  Harvard  Commencement  dinner. 
June  25,  1902.  He  reviewed  briefly  their  work 
in  the  War  Department,  in  the  Philippines 
and  in  Cuba,  and  concluded :  "These  three  men 
have  done  that  service.  I  can  do  nothing  for 
them.  I  can  show  my  appreciation  of  them 
in  no  way  save  the  wholly  insufficient  one  of 
standing  up  for  them  and  for  their  works, 
and  that  I  will  do." 

Dr.  Edward  Everett  Hale  appreciated  the 
significance  of  the  address,  for  that  same  day, 
at  a  reunion  of  the  members  of  the  Alpha 
Delta  Phi  fraternity,  he  said,  after  Mr.  Roose 
velt  had  presented  a  gold  medal  to  him  in 
behalf  of  his  fellow-fraternity  men : 

"Some  of  you  heard  the  President's  speech. 


136    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

To  those  who  were  not  there,  I  say  you  should 
have  been  there,  because  it  is  a  speech  not 
to  be  remembered  for  a  lifetime,  but  for  cen 
turies,  by  one  who  gave  every  moment  he  had 
to  extol  the  work  of  three  of  his  great  lieu 
tenants  that  they  might  have  the  fair  honour 
which  they  deserve.  I  do  not  know  that  there 
is  anything  like  it  in  literature,  where  a  chief 
has  stood  so  loyally  by  three  men  who  stood 
so  loyally  by  him  and  the  country  as  well." 

When  he  attended  his  class  reunion  at  Har 
vard  in  1905,  on  the  twenty-fifth  anniversary 
of  his  graduation,  he  manifested  the  same  dis 
position  to  say  a  good  word  for  others.  It  was 
at  the  meeting  of  the  alumni,  presided  over 
by  Bishop  Lawrence,  of  Massachusetts,  presi 
dent  of  the  association,  that  he  said: 

"I  speak  on  behalf  of  the  younger  men  here 
present  when  I  say  that  we  shall  count  our 
selves  more  than  happy  if  we  can  in  any  way 
approach  the  service  of  the  older  men  of  Har 
vard  to  the  Union.  In  Bishop  Lawrence's  very 
touching  introduction  of  me  he  spoke  of  the 


THE  HUMAN  MAN  137 

effort  I  am  making  for  peace.  [The  Presi 
dent's  intervention  in  the  war  between  Russia 
and  Japan,  which  was  later  followed  by  a  ces 
sation  of  hostilities  and  a  treaty  of  peace.] 
Of  course  I  am  for  peace.  Of  course  every 
President  who  is  fit  to  be  President  is  for 
peace.  But  I  am  for  one  thing  before  peace — 
I  am  for  righteousness  first,  and  for  peace,  be 
cause  normal  peace  is  the  instrument  for  ob 
taining  righteousness.  I  am  speaking  now  on 
behalf  of  the  class  of  '80,  and  as  nobody  else 
has  blown  our  horn  for  us  I  am  going  to  blow 
it  just  a  little.  We  have  followed  the  example 
so  admirably  set  by  the  class  of  '79  in  seek 
ing  to  show  in  practical  fashion  our  desire 
to  do  something  for  the  University.  Acting 
largely  under  the  lead  of  Mr.  Robert  Bacon, 
we  have  raised — gentlemen,  I  am  going  to  ask 
you  to  give  nine  cheers  for  Robert  Bacon." 
The  President  led  the  cheering  and  continued : 
"We  have  raised  a  fund  to  be  used  without 
conditions  at  all  for  the  benefit  of  the  Univer 
sity,  but  we  hope  it  will  be  used  in  increasing 


138    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

the  salaries  of  those  employed  to  teach  in 
Harvard  University.  We  ought  to  raise  sal 
aries  for  the  sake  of  giving  a  more  adequate 
reward  to  the  men.  But  even  if  they  would  go 
on  working  at  improperly  low  salaries,  we 
ought  to  give  them  decent  ones  for  the  sake  of 
our  own  self-respect." 

It  is  this  sort  of  whole-souled  plea  for  others 
that  is  partly  responsible  for  the  great  affec 
tion  in  which  the  country  seems  to  hold  him, 
an  affection  so  great  that  even  the  children 
share  it  and  speak  of  him  familiarly.  A  school 
teacher  in  Syracuse  disclosed  this  mental  atti 
tude  when  she  asked  a  little  girl  in  class  to 
name  the  head  of  the  government. 

"Mr.  Roosevelt,"  she  replied. 

"That  is  right,  but  what  is  his  official  title?" 

"Teddy !"  was  the  instant  response,  made 
with  great  assurance. 

Even  the  small  boys  who  are  taken  to  Wash 
ington  by  their  fathers  to  see  the  President 
get  impatient  in  the  waiting-room  and  ask : 

"When  are  we  going  to  see  Teddy?"  and 


THE  HUMAN  MAN  139 

again,  "Is  this  where  Teddy  Roosevelt 
works?" 

Mr.  Roosevelt's  interest  in  the  old  home  of 
his  mother  in  Roswell,  Georgia,  and  in  the  old 
family  servants,  manifested  during  his  visit 
there  in  1905,  has  been  well  described  by  Mr. 
Ralph  Smith,  who  says  that  as  the  President's 
carriage  passed  through  Roswell  on  the  way  to 
the  homestead  on  the  hill  an  old  man  shouted : 

"There's  Teddy,  Martha's  son!" 

The  President  himself  made  a  low  bow  and 
waved  his  hand  in  the  direction  of  the  old  man. 
At  the  homestead  "Mom"  Grace  and  "Daddy" 
Williams, '  old  servants  of  the  Bullocks,  had 
gathered  with  the  Wing  family  and  their  rela 
tives.  When  the  President  and  his  party 
reached  the  house  the  people  assembled  were 
introduced  by  Senator  Clay  to  the  President 
and  Mrs.  Roosevelt.  It  was  not  long  before 
the  President's  attention  was  drawn  to  an  old 
negro  woman,  stooped  under  the  weight  of 
years,  her  skin  black  and  wrinkled. 

"This   is    Auntie   Grace,"   said   one   of  the 


140    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

ladies,  who  had  noticed  Mr.  Roosevelt's  evi 
dent  interest. 

"Mom  Grace,  you  mean,  don't  you?"  asked 
he.  "I  have  always  heard  her  called  'Mom' 
Grace,  not  Auntie  Grace." 

"Yes,  sah,"  said  the  old  woman;  "dis  am 
'Mom  Grace,'  Miss  Mittie's  nuss,  and  you  was 
Miss  Mittie's  son?"  she  asked. 

"Yes,  Mom  Grace,  I  am  Miss  Mittie's  son, 
and  I  am  certainly  very  happy  to  see  you," 
and  the  President  cordially  grasped  the  old 
woman's  hand. 

"I  sho'  'member  Miss  Mittie,  just  like  it  was 
yestiddy,"  she  said,  "and  I  sho'  is  happy  to 
see  you,  too." 

"Where  is  Daddy  Williams?"  the  President 
asked,  referring  to  a  servant  who  had  been 
raised  as  a  slave  by  the  family. 

The  old  man  was  brought  forward  and  was 
greeted  heartily.  The  President  then  turned 
to  Mrs.  E.  H.  Wood  and  asked  about  the 
"beautiful  bed  of  violets  that  my  mother  used 
to  talk  about."  It  was  shown  to  him  with 


THE  HUMAN  MAN  141 

many  flowers  in  blossom.  Then  he  desired  to 
see  the  old  well  that  was  used  as  a  cold-storage 
vault.  He  went  through  the  house  from  top 
to  bottom  and  explored  the  back  yard,  talking 
all  the  time  of  the  many  things  which  his 
mother  had  told  him  of  the  place.  Finally  he 
stood  for  his  photograph  on  the  front  porch. 
Before  the  group  was  posed  he  said: 

"Where  are  Mom  Grace  and  Daddy  Will 
iams?  They  must  be  in  this  picture." 

And  Theodore  Roosevelt,  son  of  Martha  Bul 
lock,  stood  before  the  Southern  homestead  be 
side  his  mother's  old  black  nurse  and  another 
family  servant,  an  intensely  human  man  yield 
ing  to  the  natural  impulses  of  interest  in  the 
all  that  pertained  to  the  life  of  his  family  in 
the  generation  before  him. 


VII 
THE  DEMOCRATIC  MAN 

SOME  day  men  may  wonder  whether  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  ideals  were  formed  by  his  study  of 
the  little  volume  of  Burns  which  he  carried 
with  him  while  herding  cattle,  or  whether  he 
read  Burns  because  the  Scotchman's  sympa 
thetic  democracy  appealed  to  him.  Certain 
it  is  that  he  is  entirely  free  from  the  affecta 
tions  which  Burns  despised,  for  he  has  in 
sisted  in  season  and  out  of  season  that  "a  man's 
a  man,"  whatever  may  be  the  outward  gar 
ments  that  clothe  the  manly  spirit. 

He  seems  to  have  given  to  himself  the  advice 
that  the  Texan  gave  to  his  son  who  was  about 
to  go  to  New  York. 

"Whenever  you  meet  a  man,"  said  the  Texan, 
"who  allows  he's  your  superior,  you  just  look 
at  him  and  say  to  yourself,  'After  all,  you're 
just  folks.'  You  want  to  remember  for  your- 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  MAN  143 

self,  too,  that  you're  just  folks.  After  you 
have  lived  as  long  as  I  have,  and  knocked 
round  the  world,  you'll  learn  that  that's  all 
any  one  of  us  is — just  folks." 

He  has  never  regarded  himself  as  better  than 
anybody  else  and  has  never  asked  that  rules  be 
suspended  in  his  behalf.  Years  ago,  while  he 
was  still  a  very  young  man,  he  visited  the  Yel 
lowstone  Park.  His  seat  mate  on  the  stage 
that  carried  the  party  from  the  railroad  to  the 
park  says: 

"When  we  reached  the  government  station, 
at  the  entrance  to  the  national  park,  an  official 
asked  that  all  hunting  arms  be  passed  to  him 
in  order  that  he  might  seal  them.  Mr.  Roose 
velt  promptly  turned  his  guns  over  to  the  offi 
cer  ;  but  the  man  instantly  recognised  the  trav 
eller  and  offered  them  back.  The  recognition 
was  mutual. 

"  'Your  guns  are  all  right,  Mr.  Roosevelt,' 
said  the  government  officer  in  a  low  tone. 

"  'No ;  they  have  no  seals  upon  them,'  was 
the  prompt  reply. 


144    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

"  'I  can  trust  you,'  answered  the  inspector. 

"  'Not  on  your  life,'  answered  the  visitor. 
'Seal  'em  up !  No  special  privileges  for  me, 
just  because  we  have  met  before,  old  man.' 

"And  Mr.  Roosevelt's  guns  were  sealed  like 
the  others." 

Mr.  Roosevelt  might  have  been  different,  for 
we  find  men,  descended  from  honourable  an 
cestors  and  blessed  with  inherited  wealth,  who 
think  that  they  are  better  than  others  and  talk 
about  the  "lower  orders"  and  the  importance 
of  rescuing  control  of  government  from  the 
plain  people  because  they  do  not  agree  with 
those  pleased  to  call  themselves  the  "educated 
classes."  It  would  have  been  easy  for  Mr. 
Roosevelt  to  have  fallen  in  with  the  theories 
and  practices  of  the  people  who  believe  in  gov 
ernment  by  the  few  on  the  ground  that  the 
many  cannot  be  trusted  to  decide  what  is  good 
for  them.  But  the  notion  of  imposing  govern 
ment  from  above  on  anybody  save  the  crimi 
nal,  seems  never  to  have  occurred  to  him  as  a 
just  or  a  righteous  thing.  As  previously  re- 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  MAN  145 

corded,  he  told  a  New  York  audience  in  1890 
that  he  had  more  confidence  in  the  virile 
vicious  than  in  the  inefficient  and  degenerate 
"higher  society."  He  only  elaborated  this 
idea  when  he  said  on  another  occasion : 

"For  myself,  I'd  work  as  quick  beside  Pat 
Dugan  as  with  the  last  descendants  of  the 
Patroon.  It  literally  makes  no  difference  to 
me,  so  long  as  the  work  is  good  and  the  man  is 
in  earnest.  I  would  have  the  young  men 
work.  I'd  try  to  develop  and  work  out  an 
ideal  of  mine,  the  theory  of  the  duty  of  the 
leisure  classes  to  the  community.  I  have  tried 
to  do  it  by  example,  and  it  is  what  I  have 
preached — first  and  foremost,  to  be  American, 
heart  and  soul,  and  to  go  with  any  person, 
heedless  of  anything  but  that  man's  personal 
qualifications." 

It  is  always  the  man  that  counts  with  him. 
"The  rank  is  but  the  guinea's  stamp."  And 
when  he  has  found  a  man  he  is  always  loyal  to 
him.  All  those  who  have  had  anything  to  do 
with  him  know  this.  He  showed  it  in  Bangor, 


146    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

Maine,  when  he  was  there  in  the  summer  of 
1902.  At  a  suitable  pause  in  the  proceedings 
of  the  meeting  which  he  was  addressing  he 
went  to  the  edge  of  the  platform  and  called 
out: 

"If  'Old  Bill'  Sewall  is  in  town  I  want  him  to 
join  me  at  luncheon,  for  I  feel  like  a  man  who 
has  lost  a  partner  in  a  crowd." 

It  was  William  Wingate  Sewall,  of  Island 
Falls,  that  he  wanted,  the  man  who  went  West 
with  him  when  he  bought  his  ranch  in  Dakota 
Territory.  There  was  a  scurrying  hunt  for 
Sewall,  and  when  he  was  found  he  shared  the 
honours  of  the  day  with  the  President. 

"I  knew  that  if  the  President  knew  I  was 
around,"  said  he  in  the  evening,  when  the  ex 
citement  had  subsided  somewhat,  "he'd  have 
me  right  with  him,  but  I  didn't  think  it  would 
be  anything  like  this.  I  have  known  him  for 
twenty-three  years — ever  since  he  was  a  col 
lege  boy.  We  didn't  talk  much  about  politics 
to-day.  We  had  other  things  to  talk  about." 

According  to  General  Charles  F.  Manderson, 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  MAN  147 

former  United  States  Senator  from  Nebraska, 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  democratic  manner  had  a 
somewhat  startling  effect  on  a  prominent  Eng 
lishman  who  saw  him  when  he  was  Governor 
of  New  York. 

"I  was  in  Buffalo,  attending  a  meeting  of 
the  American  Bar  Association,"  said  General 
Manderson,  who  was  its  president.  "Among 
the  distinguished  guests  present  from  abroad 
was  Sir  William  Kennedy,  of  London,  eminent 
in  the  profession,  and  one  of  the  justices  of 
the  High  Court  of  Justice  of  Great  Britain 
and  president  of  the  International  Law  Asso 
ciation. 

"One  night  while  seated  in  the  parlour  of 
our  hotel  the  attention  of  the  English  lawyers 
who  were  present  was  attracted  by  consider 
able  hilarity  in  an  adjoining  room.  Later  on 
the  door  opened  and  in  walked  Governor 
Roosevelt.  He  greeted  me  in  his  usual  breezy 
fashion,  and  in  explanation  of  his  presence  in 
town  stated  that  he  had  been  addressing  some 
of  the  agricultural  societies  of  the  State  and 


148    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

had  come  to  Buffalo  to  dine  and  spend  the 
evening  with  a  number  of  his  personal  and 
political  friends.  He  spoke  to  me  of  having 
lately  attended  a  reunion  of  Rough  Riders, 
and  greatly  amused  and  interested  me  and  the 
group  of  foreign  gentlemen,  all  of  them  law 
yers,  seated  near,  with  a  vivid  and  picturesque 
description  of  his  army  life  in  Cuba ;  of  the 
life  on  the  plains  in  which  he  had  figured, 
with  tales  of  bucking  bronchos  and  cavorting 
steers  with  heads  aloft  and  tails  over  their 
backs  in  wild  stampede.  He  also  gave  inter 
esting  bits  of  hunting  scenes,  and  wound  up 
with  some  unique  views  of  men  and  things  in 
teresting  to  him  in  his  brief  but  strenuous 
existence. 

"I  took  advantage  of  a  pause  in  the  conversa 
tion,"  General  Manderson  continues,  "to  in 
troduce  the  foreign  gentlemen  present.  After 
Mr.  Roosevelt  had  taken  his  departure,  Sir 
William  Kennedy  broke  out  with,  'But,  I  say, 
Senator,  that  is  a  very  remarkable  man,  you 
know,  a  very  remarkable  man.  And  you  say 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  MAN  149 

he  is  Governor  of  New  York.  That  is  very 
surprising,  you  know.  I  really  can't  say  that 
I  ever  before  met  exactly  such  a  man.  And  he 
seems  to  be  a  fighter.  I  rather  like  that  in 
him.  And  you  say  he  is  a  writer  of  high  re 
pute,  too?  Well,  by  Jove,  he  is  the  queerest 
combination  I  have  ever  met.' 

"During  the  summer  of  1901,  while  I  was  in 
London,  I  again  met  Sir  William.  Mr.  Roose 
velt's  impressive  individuality  still  dominated 
his  mind,  for  after  indulging  in  some  prelimi 
nary  conversation  he  remarked:  'By  the  way, 
I  see  that  your  friend  Roosevelt,  whom  we  met 
in  Buffalo,  is  Vice-President.  That  is  very  as 
tonishing,  very  astonishing,  indeed.  I  was 
much  interested  in  him  at  the  time  and  have 
watched  his  course  and  have  read  some  of  his 
writings.  He  seems  to  write  as  well  as  he 
fights,  and  is  very  young  to  have  had  such  an 
eventful  career.' 

"I  told  him  to  watch  the  future  and  not  be 
astonished  at  what  could  be  achieved  by  young 
men  in  this  young  country  of  ours.  I  then  in- 


150    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

creased  his  amazement  by  telling  him  the  story 
of  Roosevelt's  nomination  as  Vice-President, 
and  how  it  was  forced  upon  him.  When  he 
heard  that  his  great  desire  was.to  be  re-elected 
as  Governor  of  New  York,  that  he  might  carry 
out  certain  bold  reforms,  the  amazement  of 
this  intelligent  and  appreciative  jurist  in 
creased. 

"Sir  William  Kennedy  was  in  this  country 
again  in  the  summer  of  1904,"  General  Man- 
derson  concluded,  "and  I  met  him  at  the  Con 
gress  of  Lawyers  in  St.  Louis.  He  has  ceased 
to  be  amazed,  and  his  astonishment  has  given 
way  to  the  satisfaction  that  all  prominent 
Englishmen  seem  to  feel  over  the  advancement 
of  this  typical  American." 

The  human  and  humane  things  seem  to  be 
easy  for  him,  even  though  at  times  it  means 
taking  note  of  trivial  matters.  One  day  while 
Governor  he  was  walking  from  the  Capitol  in 
Albany,  accompanied  by  a  friend,  when  he 
noticed  two  sturdy  but  tired  horses  striving 
to  haul  a  load  up  the  ice-covered  street. 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  MAN  151 

One  of  the  horses  slipped.  Mr.  Roosevelt 
stopped  at  once,  and  with  the  absorbed  ex 
pression  on  his  face  which  he  wears  when 
deeply  interested,  wratched  the  horse  get  up 
on  his  feet.  The  animal  stumbled  again  and 
fell. 

"Stop  a  moment,"  Mr.  Roosevelt  said  to  the 
driver.  "Drive  sideways." 

The  man  did  not  recognise  the  Governor  and 
wras  about  to  curse  him  for  interfering  when 
Mr.  Roosevelt  caught  his  eye.  Then  the  man 
zigzagged  his  horses  up  the  hill  past  the  ice 
with  never  a  word. 

The  grim  look  on  the  Governor's  face  dis 
appeared  as  quickly  as  it  came,  and  the  next 
moment  he  had  lifted  his  hat  to  a  little  child 
who  had  saluted  him  in  military  fashion. 

With  equal  sympathy  he  relieved  the  em 
barrassment  of  a  new  page  who  was  overawed 
by  his  boyish  idea  of  the  greatness  of  the  head 
of  the  State  government.  The  boy  had  to 
deliver  a  message  to  the  Governor  and  he  en 
tered  the  executive  chamber  with  his  heart  in 


152    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

his  throat  and  his  knees  trembling  from  em 
barrassment.  When  he  reappeared  from  the 

room  after  delivering  the  note  he  was  smiling 
blissfully,  and  as  he  met  another  page  he 
exclaimed  enthusiastically : 

"Say,  ain't  Teddy  a  peach!" 

Neither  as  Governor  of  his  own  State,  nor 
yet  as  President,  has  he  for  one  moment  for 
gotten  that  he  is  "just  folks."  He  does  chafe, 
however,  under  the  awesome  manner  with 
which  he  is  sometimes  approached.  In  refer 
ring  to  this  subject  in  conversation  with  a 
friend  at  dinner,  he  said  : 

"I  am  losing  all  my  manners.  The  ladies 
won't  sit  down  where  I  am  unless  I  sit  down 
first." 

When  a  woman  from  Jacksonville,  Florida, 
was  presented  to  him  in  his  office,  she  an 
nounced  : 

"Mr.  President,  I  have  come  all  this  way 
just  to  see  you.  I  have  never  seen  a  live 
President  before." 

"Well,  well,"  was  the  reply,  while  the  woman 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  MAN  153 

looked  shocked,  "I  hope  you  don't  feel  disap 
pointed,  now  that  you  have  seen  one.  Lots 
of  people  in  these  parts  go  all  the  way  to 
Jacksonville  to  see  a  live  alligator." 

He  surprised  a  painter  who  was  at  work  on 
the  White  House  just  as  he  astonished  the 
woman  from  Jacksonville.  He  went  out  of 
the  house  one  day  to  see  how  the  men  were 
getting  on  with  their  work.  One  of  them  was 
swinging  his  brush  in  a  leisurely  fashion  and 
Mr.  Roosevelt  stopped  near  him  to  see  how 
slowly  the  man  could  work.  Pretty  soon  he 
demanded : 

"How  much  do  you  get  a  day?" 

"Three  and  a  quarter,"  the  painter  replied. 

"That's  big  pay  for  such  pleasant  work,"  re 
joined  the  President.  "When  I  was  a  boy  I 
used  to  think  that  I  would  like  to  be  a  painter. 
It  always  appealed  to  me  because  you  can  see 
something  accomplished  with  each  stroke  of 
the  brush." 

By  this  time  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  close  beside 
the  man,  who  asked  him  if  he  did  not  want  to 


154    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

try  his  hand  at  painting  now,  and  offered  his 
brush.  Much  to  his  surprise,  the  President 
took  it  and  for  a  time  covered  the  wall  with 
paint  at  a  rapid  rate.  He  went  over  fully  ten 
square  feet  of  surface  before  he  surrendered 
the  brush.  Then  he  nodded,  as  much  as  to 
say,  "That  is  the  way  you  ought  to  work," 
and  walked  over  to  a  gang  of  men  who  were 
shovelling  dirt  into  a  waggon. 

One  of  his  South  Dakota  friends  went  to 
Washington  to  renew  his  acquaintance  with 
Mr.  Roosevelt  soon  after  he  became  President. 
While  he  was  there  he  attended  a  musicale  at 
the  White  House.  At  the  close  of  the  pro 
gramme — classical  music  only  had  been 
played — Some  one  asked  the  man  banteringly 
how  he  had  liked  the  entertainment. 

"I  am  afraid,"  he  replied  dryly,  as  many 
another  man  would  have  done,  "I'm  afraid  it 
was  a  spell  too  far  up  the  gulch  for  me." 

The  President,  who  heard  the  pertinent  criti 
cism,  laughed  heartily,  turned  to  the  man's 
wife  and  saved  the  situation  by  remarking 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  MAN  155 

"You'd  better  take  care  of  the  captain's  pis 
tol.  I  know  that  out  in  his  country  they  shoot 
the  fiddler  when  he  doesn't  play  the  tunes  they 
want." 

In  the  autumn  of  1908  a  committee  of  labour 
men  from  Montana  went  to  Washington  to 
talk  about  the  labour  situation  in  that  State. 
Before  entering  on  the  discussion  of  their 
business  the  President  entertained  them  at 
luncheon,  with  Secretary  Cortelyou,  of  the 
Department  of  Labour  and  Commerce ;  Car 
roll  D.  Wright,  Labour  Commissioner ;  Repre 
sentative  Dixon  of  Montana,  and  Wayne  Mc- 
Veagh,  as  the  other  guests.  He  told  the  labour 
man  he  was  "as  glad  to  welcome  them  as  he 
would  be  to  receive  seven  of  the  richest  and 
most  influential  men  in  the  country,"  and  then 
led  the  conversation  around  to  life  in  the  West, 
with  which  his  guests  were  familiar,  and  still 
further  appealed  to  them  by  stories  of  his  own 
experience. 

"The  best  meal  I  have  ever  eaten,"  said  he, 
among  other  things,  "or  at  least,  the  one  that 


156    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

tasted  best,  I  got  in  Butte,  and  it  cost  me  just 
twenty-five  cents. 

"In  1885,  Jack  Willis,  a  cowboy  friend  of 
mine,  and  I  landed  in  Butte.  Our  remittances 
had  been  delayed  and  we  had  just  half  a  dol 
lar  between  us.  We  were  so  hungry  we  could 
hardly  see,  and  we  were  much  afraid  that  our 
fifty  cents  would  not  go  far  toward  satisfying 
our  appetites. 

"Finally  we  found  a  twenty-five-cent  restau 
rant — not  a  Chinese  restaurant,  either — and 
the  meal  we  got  there  made  us  happy  and  con 
tent.  The  next  day  our  money  reached  us 
and  we  were  all  right.  But  ever  since  then 
I  have  had  a  warm  place  in  my  heart  for 
Butte." 

His  human  sympathy  has  made  it  possible  for 
for  him  to  get  enjoyment  out  of  many  novel 
situations.  The  Kansas  City  newspapers  have 
preserved  an  instance  of  his  geniality,  shown 
at  the  time  of  his  visit  to  that  city  in  1903. 
As  the  parade  in  his  honour  was  passing  along 
Walnut  Street  a  cowboy  stepped  over  the 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  MAN  157 

rope  that  was  holding  back  the  spectators — 
he  was  tall  enough  to  step  over  it  easily — and, 
taking  off  his  sombrero  with  a  courtly  flourish, 
as  the  President  appeared,  he  yelled : 

"Hello,  Ted!" 

The  President  looked  around  suddenly,  a 
broad  smile  spread  over  his  features,  and  he 
slowly  and  distinctly  winked  his  left  eye  at  the 
man  in  the  street. 

When  the  police  succeeded  in  getting  the 
cowboy  back  behind  the  rope,  where  he  be 
longed  and  where  he  was  among  his  friends, 
he  exclaimed  enthusiastically: 

"Did  you  see  him  recognise  me?  Why,  me 
and  Ted  used  to  ride  the  range  together  in 
Wyoming.  We're  old  pals.  Did  you  see  him 
wink  t'other  eye?  He  knows  me  all  right." 

Mr.  Roosevelt  has  not  yet  confessed  whether 
he  knew  the  man,  or  only  knew  what  would 
please  him. 

Since  he  has  been  President,  he  has  always 
tried  to  gratify  the  desire  of  the  people  to  see 
him.  On  his  tours  of  the  country  he  has 


158    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

recognised  the  propriety  of  the  curiosity  of 
the  people  to  look  on  a  "live  President,"  even 
though  he  does  smile  when  they  confess  that 
curiosity  in  Washington. 

"I  had  the  honour  to  be  the  guest  of  the 
President  during  his  journey  through  the 
Eighth  Congressional  District  of  Iowa,"  said 
Colonel  Hepburn,  the  representative  of  that 
district,  in  discussing  this  subject.  "The 
schedule  provided  for  five  stops,  at  which  times 
the  President  made  some  remarks  to  the  vast 
crowds  of  people  who  had  gathered  to  see  the 
Chief  Executive.  We  passed  through,  per 
haps,  twenty  towns  where  no  stops  were  made, 
but  the  President  insisted  that  the  train  should 
slow  up  at  every  station,  and  no  matter  what 
he  happened  to  be  engaged  in  doing  at  the 
time,  he  instantly  ran  to  the  rear  platform  and 
bowed,  and  in  some  instances  waved  his  hat 
or  handkerchief  to  the  masses  of  people  who 
had  expected  to  get  only  a  glimpse  of  a  fly 
ing  train  bearing  the  President  of  the  United 
States. 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  MAN  159 

"It  was  raining  at  one  of  the  points  where  a 
stop  was  made,"  Colonel  Hepburn  continued, 
"and  the  President  was  to  take  a  short  drive 
and  inspect  the  town.  The  committee  on  re 
ception  had  provided  a  covered  carriage,  but 
the  President  insisted  that  the  top  should  be 
lowered  even  though  it  exposed  him  to  the 
storm.  As  the  top  was  dropped  he  remarked : 

"  'These  thousands  of  people  have  assembled 
this  bad  day  to  see  their  President ;  if  they  can 
stand  to  walk  in  the  rain,  I  guess  I  can  stand 
it  to  ride  a  few  minutes  in  the  rain.' 

"At  the  town  of  Diagonal,  the  President  was 
making  a  speech.  An  old  crippled  soldier 
hobbled  along  and  tried  to  find  a  seat  without 
success.  The  President  stopped  and  said : 

"  'I  cannot  proceed  until  that  old  soldier 
is  provided  with  a  place  to  sit.' 

"At  one  point  the  President  looked  out  of  the 
window  of  the  car  and  a  few  rods  ahead  saw  a 
farmer  in  his  working  clothes  with  bared  head, 
standing  alongside  the  track  that  ran  through 
his  cornfield.  Realising  that  the  farmer  in- 


160    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

tended  to  show  his  respect  for  the  President 
of  the  United  States  as  he  was  borne  by  on  the 
rushing  train,  Mr.  Roosevelt,  without  stop 
ping  to  excuse  himself  to  the  men  he  was  talk 
ing  with,  seized  his  hat,  dashed  to  the  rear 
platform,  swung  it  in  the  air  and  bowed." 

Mr.  Roosevelt's  approachableness  impresses, 
itself  upon  all  who  have  anything  to  do  with 
him,  whether  it  be  the  members  of  the  Diplo 
matic  Corps  (the  representative  of  the  Ger 
man  Embassy,  who  accompanied  him  on  one  of 
his  tours,  was  astounded  at  the  heartiness 
with  which  he  entered  into  the  spirit  of  a  bur 
lesque  dinner  in  the  dining  car  which  the  news 
paper  men  on  the  train  gave  in  the  President's 
honour)  or  whether  it  be  his  own  country 
men  of  whatever  station. 

"  'Mr.  Roosevelt  is  by  all  odds  the  most 
democratic  President  we  have  had  since  the 
days  of  Jefferson.' 

"These  words,"  says  Mr.  Eggleston  in  the 
interesting  account  of  his  visit  to  the  Presi 
dent  referred  to  in  a  previous  chapter,  "were 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  MAN  161 

spoken  to  me  in  Washington  the  other  day  by 
a  gentlewoman  who  has  lived  long,  travelled 
much,  and  observed  closely,  and  who,  by 
reason  of  her  high  social  position,  has  had  the 
entree  of  the  White  House  for  thirty  years 
or  more. 

"I  quoted  the  utterance  to  Mr.  Roosevelt 
soon  afterward,"  Mr.  Eggleston  continues, 
"when  I  had  the  pleasure  of  passing  an  hour 
or  two  with  him  in  the  private,  residential  part 
of  the  Executive  Mansion.  His  answer  was 
quick,  as  his  answers  are  apt  to  be  when  any 
thing  interests  him. 

"  'I  am  democratic,'  he  said,  with  emphasis 
on  the  verb,  'if  the  word  democratic  is  used  in 
its  legitimate  sense.  But  I  have  no  patience 
with  the  vulgarly  ostentatious  avoidance  of  os 
tentation  which  sometimes  calls  itself  "demo 
cratic."  I  have  no  sympathy  with  the  thought 
that  in  order  to  be  democratic  one  must  put 
aside  respect  for  the  gentle  decencies  of  life 
and  make  a  boor  or  a  clown  of  himself.  I 
believe  thoroughly  in  the  simplicities  and  the 


1(>2    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

honesties  of  life  and  in  the  fellowship  of  all 
honest  and  sincere  men.  But  it  doesn't  appeal 
to  me  when  a  man  refuses  to  wear  the  cus 
tomary  garb  of  gentlemen  lest  aristocratic 
pretensions  be  attributed  to  him.' 

"You  do  not  think,  then,"  Mr.  Eggleston 
interjected,  "that  one  need  go  to  a  public  din 
ner  without  cuffs  in  order  to  demonstrate  his 
democracy  ?" 

"The  President  laughed,  and  his  laugh  was 
sufficient  answer  to  my  question,"  says  Mr. 
Eggleston.  "But  presently  he  added : 

"  'It  is  my  endeavour  to  make  of  the  White 
House  during  my  term,  not  a  second-rate  pal 
ace,  like  that  of  some  insignificant  prince,  but 
the  home  of  a  self-respecting  American  citi 
zen  who  has  been  called  for  a  time  to  serve  his 
countrymen  in  executive  office.  There  seems 
to  be  a  world  of  difference  between  democracy 
and  demagogy.  The  one  is  based  upon  an 
honest  and  sincere  respect  for  one's  fellow-men, 
the  other  involves  the  sacrifice  of  self-respect 
in  an  appeal  to  vulgarity  and  prejudice.' 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  MAN  163 

"As  Mr.  Roosevelt  earnestly  said  this,"  com 
ments  Mr.  Eggleston,  "I  could  not  avoid  re 
calling  that  passage  in  the  novel  called  'Democ 
racy,'  in  which  it  is  recorded  that  a  certain 
Senator  of  the  cuffless  sort  gravely  doubted 
the  prudence  of  taking  a  daily  bath  lest  the 
practice  be  regarded  by  his  constituents  as 
'savouring  of  aristocracy.' ' 

Mr.  Eggleston  has  also  recorded  the  impres 
sion  which  he  received  of  the  President's 
appreciation  of  the  dignity  of  the  great  office 
that  he  occupies :  "He  is  first  of  all  a  gentle 
man,  with  all  a  gentleman's  self-respect.  He 
is,  secondly,  an  American  citizen,  so  strongly 
imbued  with  a  sense  of  the  dignity  of  Ameri 
can  citizenship  that  he  makes  his  respectful 
bow  to  it  whenever  he  meets  it.  He  is,  thirdly, 
the  chosen  representative  of  seventy-five  mil 
lion  people,  selected  from  their  number  by 
their  willing  suffrages  to  occupy  the  highest 
office  within  their  gift.  He  maintains  all  of 
dignity  that  his  high  office  demands  of  him. 
He  has  all  the  winning  and  easy  courtesy  for 


16-1    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

those  who  approach  him  that  any  gentleman 
shows  to  the  stranger  within  his  gates.  And 
with  due  respect  to  those  imperative  obliga 
tions,  he  has  all  that  any  American  citizen  can 
have  of  frank  and  generous  recognition  of 
other  citizenship  than  his  own.  When  he 
comes  out  of  his  sanctum,  as  I  saw  him  do  a 
little  while  ago,  to  greet  the  miscellaneous 
throng  of  persons  who  daily  call,  with  no  other 
purpose  than  the  idle  one  of  shaking  hands, 
he  does  so  precisely  as  he  might  enter  his  draw 
ing-room  at  Oyster  Bay  to  converse  with  as 
sembled  guests.  There  is  no  formality  or  air 
of  state  in  his  demeanour ;  but  there  is  equally 
nothing  of  assumed  familiarity.  He  does  not 
sit  or  stand,  as  former  Presidents  have  done,  to 
have  his  guests  'presented.'  He  simply  moves 
about  among  them,  as  one  does  in  his  parlour, 
greeting  each  pleasantly,  saying  whatever 
there  is  to  be  said  of  friendliness  or  courtesy, 
and  if  one  previously  known  to  him  happens 
to  be  in  the  assemblage,  grasping  his  hand 
with  special  cordiality  and  making  pleasant 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  MAN  165 

reference  to  some  previous  occasion  of  meet 
ing.  In  brief,  President  Roosevelt  receives 
his  morning  callers  in  the  White  House  pre 
cisely  as  plain  Mr.  Theodore  Roosevelt  has 
always  received  his  callers  in  his  own  home. 
And  he  sends  them  away  at  last,  happy  and 
with  the  feeling  that  there  has  been  nothing 
of  arrogance  in  his  reception  of  them,  and 
especially  nothing  of  condescension.  This 
robustly  healthy  American  citizen  who  is  our 
chief  executive  has  no  sympathy  with  the  inso 
lence  either  of  arrogance  or  of  condescen 
sion." 

How  true  this  last  statement  is  was  well  illus 
trated  when,  as  Civil  Service  Commissioner, 
he  kept  President  Harrison  waiting  while  he 
showed  an  errand  boy  the  shortest  route  from 
the  Treasury  Building  to  the  Capitol. 

He  goes  about  his  business  as  any  other  self- 
respecting  citizen,  making  himself  incon 
spicuous  rather  than  thrusting  himself  for 
ward.  This  has  been  his  habit  for  years. 
When  he  was  president  of  the  Police  Commis- 


166    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

sion  in  New  York,  he  attended  the  Bourke 
Cockran  meeting  in  Madison  Square  Garden 
in  the  autumn  of  1896.  I  chanced  to  sit  two 
rows  behind  the  arena  box  which  had  been  re 
served  for  him.  As  he  entered  the  hall,  the 
people  began  to  crane  their  necks  and  look 
at  him,  and  "There's  Roosevelt,"  was  heard 
from  many  voices  as  he  walked  along.  Men 
stopped  him  to  grasp  his  hand,  and  he  would 
respond  briefly  and  hasten  along,  evidently 
anxious  to  escape  the  crowd.  When  he 
reached  the  box  he  went  to  the  back  of  it  and 
got  behind  the  gentlemen  who  were  with  him, 
apparently  desiring  to  hide  himself  from  the 
curious  eyes  that  seemed  to  follow  his  every 
move. 

In  Washington  he  has  also  striven  to  make 
himself  inconspicuous,  and  has  succeeded  in 
walking  about  the  city  many  times  without 
attracting  special  attention.  For  instance, 
one  December  Sunday  afternoon  when  Connec 
ticut  Avenue  was  full  of  dignitaries  he  walked 
through  the  street  without  being  recognised. 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  MAT*  167 

He  wore  a  faded  brown  coat,  which  was  tightly 
buttoned  about  his  chest  to  keep  out  the  biting 
wind.     An  old  weather-beaten  hat  was  pulled 
down  on  his  head,  the  brim  half  concealing  his 
face.    His  shoes  were  heavy  and  covered  with 
mud.     His  companion  was  a  short  man,  fash 
ionably  clad,  with  a  silk  hat  on  his  head.     The 
two  men  were  earnestly  talking,  and  one  giving 
only  a  casual  glance  at  the  couple  might  have 
thought  that  the  larger,  roughly  dressed  man 
was  asking  the  other  for  a  quarter  to  pay  for 
a   night's    lodging.      The   conversation   con 
tinued  till  the  pair  came  in  sight  of  the  White 
House,  where  a  little  black  newsboy  caught 
sight  of  them.    His  face  lit  up  with  a  smile  of 
recognition. 

"Hello!"  he  was  heard  to  say  to  himself. 
"Marse  Teddy !" 

The  boy  was  about  the  only  person  who  had 
discovered  the  President  in  the  unconven 
tional  attire  that  he  had  put  on  for  a  long 
walk  in  the  country  with  his  Attorney- 
General. 


168    THE  M"ANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

Another  picture  of  him  in  Washington  may 
be  worth  while  preserving.  He  is  fond  of  the 
theatre ;  but  he  uses  it  for  relaxation  and  sees 
the  light  comedies  and  comic  operas  which  can 
be  enjoyed,  when  enjoyed  at  all,  with  little 
mental  exertion.  When  he  was  present  at  such 
a  performance  in  the  early  winter  of  1905  a 
little  Boston  terrier  belonging  to  one  of  the 
young  women  in  the  chorus  found  its  way  to 
the  stage,  attracted  thither  by  the  lights. 
The  dog  got  in  front  of  the  line  of 
dancing  and  singing  young  women,  looked 
about,  stretched,  and  yawned.  Everybody 
laughed,  including  Mr.  Roosevelt.  The 
dog  heard  the  President's  laugh  and  strolled 
over  toward  the  side  of  the  stage,  sat 
down  and  looked  at  the  man.  Mr.  Roosevelt 
smiled  back  at  the  dog.  In  a  second  or  two 
he  gathered  himself  for  a  jump  and  leaped 
over  the  side  of  the  box  into  the  President's 
lap  and  settled  down  contentedly.  Mr.  Roose 
velt  fondled  the  animal  a  moment  and  then 
lifted  him  back  to  the  stage  to  the  accompani- 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  MAN  169 

ment  of  wild  and  enthusiastic  applause,  and 
the  performance,  which  had  been  interrupted 
by  the  incident,  was  resumed ;  but  the  audience 
for  a  time  thought  more  of  the  instructive 
confidence  with  which  the  dog  had  appealed 
to  the  President's  interest  than  of  the  play  on 
the  stage. 


VIII 
THE  LITERARY  MAN 


MR.  ROOSEVELT  early  decided  to  use  his  pen. 
He  had  inherited  fortune  enough  so  that  it 
was  not  necessary  for  him  to  work  for  a  mere 
subsistence,  but  he  was  not  content  to  be  idle. 
His  energies  had  to  be  employed  in  some  way, 
and  the  pursuit  of  literature  appealed  to  him. 
Later,  as  his  family  grew,  he  confessed  to 
friends  that  it  had  now  become  necessary  for 
him  to  write  if  he  was  to  give  his  children  the 
education  which  he  desired  for  them.  The  in 
come  from  his  inheritance  was  not  large 
enough  of  itself. 

His  first  book  was  a  naval  history  of  the  War 
of  1812,  which  was  published  when  he  was 
twenty-four  years  old,  and  had  been  out  of 
college  only  two  years.  The  reason  the  sub 
ject  attracted  him  was  characteristic.  The 
histories  which  he  had  read  were  one-sided. 


THE  LITERARY  MAN  171 

They  gave  too  much  credit  to  the  American 
Navy  and  too  little  to  the  British.  The  facts 
were  not  fairly  presented.  He  thought  that, 
in  justice  to  both  sides,  a  more  accurate  ac 
count  of  the  war  with  a  more  impartial  esti 
mate  of  the  military  significance  of  the  vic 
tories  ought  to  be  prepared.  He  did  this  work 
so  successfully  that  the  critics  of  greatest  au 
thority  commended  him,  declaring  that  "the 
impartiality  of  the  author's  judgment  and  the 
thoroughness  with  which  the  evidence  is  sifted 
are  remarkable  and  worthy  of  high  praise." 
When  an  English  publisher  prepared  a  his 
tory  of  the  British  Navy  Mr.  Roosevelt  was 
asked  to  write  the  history  of  its  exploits  in  this 
war.  He  made  himself  an  authority  on  the 
subject  at  an  age  when  other  young  men  are 
authorities  only  on  tennis,  baseball,  polo,  golf, 
or,  possibly,  bridge  whist. 

His  next  book  grew  out  of  his  ranching  ex 
periences,  and  was  published  in  1885,  three 
years  after  the  first.  It  was  called  "Hunting 
Trips  of  a  Ranchman:  Sketches  of  Sport  on 


172    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

the  Northern  Cattle  Plains,  together  with  Per 
sonal  Experiences  of  Life  on  a  Cattle  Ranch." 
It  was  profusely  illustrated,  and  first  pub 
lished  in  an  edition  limited  to  five  hundred 
copies  and  sold  by  subscription  for  fifteen  dol 
lars.  In  honour  of  the  author's  ranch  town, 
it  was  called  the  "Medora  Edition." 

His  literary  and  historical  reputation  was 
sufficiently  established  by  this  time  for  the 
publishers  of  a  series  of  biographies  of  Ameri 
can  statesmen  to  ask  him  to  write  the  lives  of 
Thomas  Hart  Benton  and  Gouverneur  Morris. 
These  were  published  in  separate  volumes,  in 
1886  and  1887.  And  in  1887  there  also  ap 
peared  with  his  name  on  the  title-page  a  vol 
ume  of  "Essays  on  Practical  Politics."  An 
other  volume  based  on  his  Western  experiences 
came  out  the  next  year,  with  the  title  "Ranch 
Life  and  the  Hunting  Trail."  It  is  devoted 
to  a  description  of  life  on  the  plains  as  it  was 
lived  in  the  early  eighties  of  the  last  century. 
That  life  is  fast  disappearing  with  the  fencing 
of  the  ranges  and  the  growing  density  of  pop- 


THE  LITERARY  MAN  173 

ulation.  Mr.  Roosevelt's  book  will  be  increas 
ingly  interesting,  not  only  as  a  record  of  ex 
periences  of  one  of  the  Presidents,  but  also 
as  an  account  of  conditions  that  once  existed 
in  the  West. 

In  1889  the  first  two  volumes  of  "Winning 
of  the  West"  appeared,  his  historical  work  of 
greatest  dignity  and  value.  The  third  volume 
was  published  in  1894.  It  deals  with  the 
period  from  1784  to  1790,  and  describes  the 
founding  of  the  trans-Allegheny  common 
wealths.  What  happened  in  the  period  cov 
ered  by  the  volume,  Mr.  Roosevelt  briefly 
summarises  in  the  preface.  "It  was  during 
those  seven  years,"  he  writes,  "that  the  Con 
stitution  was  adopted  and  actually  went  into 
effect ;  an  event,  if  possible,  even  more  mo 
mentous  for  the  West  than  for  the  East. 
The  time  was  one  of  vital  importance  to  the 
whole  nation ;  alike  to  the  people  of  the  inland 
frontier  and  to  those  of  the  seaboard.  The 
course  of  events  during  those  years  determined 
whether  we  should  become  a  mighty  nation  or 


174    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

a  mere  snarl  of  weak  and  quarrelsome  little 
commonwealths,  with  a  history  as  bloody  and 
meaningless  as  that  of  the  Spanish- American 
states." 

It  should  be  noted  here  by  the  student  of  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  intellectual  and  political  growth, 
that  for  many  years  he  has  been  occupied  with 
the  study  of  the  development  and  expansion 
of  the  United  States,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  historian,  modified  by  the  experience  of 
practical  political  life.  It  was  not  as  a  mere 
tyro  that  he  entered  upon  the  management  of 
the  executive  affairs  of  the  government  in  ac 
cordance  with  the  national  policy  that  had 
grown  up  during  a  century.  If  fate  had  in 
tended  him  for  the  Presidency,  he  could  have 
had  no  better  training  in  Americanism, 
properly  so  called,  than  he  secured  through 
his  studies  for  this  book.  The  fourth  volume 
of  it  was  published  in  1896,  and  in  1898  he 
was  planning  to  complete  the  fifth  volume  if 
he  should  not  be  elected  Governor  of  New 
York. 


THE  LITERARY  MAN  175 

His  historical  studies  have  not  been  confined 
to  the  incorporation  of  the  great  West  into 
the  nation.  He  has  written  a  "History  of 
New  York  City,"  published  in  1891,  in  which 
he  says :  "It  has  been  my  aim  less  to  collect 
new  facts  than  to  draw  from  the  immense 
storehouse  of  facts  already  collected  those 
which  were  of  real  importance  in  New  York 
history,  and  to  show  their  true  meaning  and 
their  relations  to  one  another;  to  sketch  the 
workings  of  the  town's  life,  social,  commercial, 
and  political,  at  successive  periods,  with  their 
sharp  transformations  and  contrasts,  and  to 
trace  the  causes  which  gradually  changed  the 
little  Dutch  trading  hamlet  into  a  huge  Ameri 
can  city." 

These  historical  subjects  are  peculiarly 
American,  involving  either  the  absorption  of 
vast  territory  into  the  national  domain  or  the 
building  of  a  great  city  from  the  many  and 
diverse  peoples  that  have  sought  freedom  of 
opportunity  to  live  their  life  in  their  own  way 
on  these  shores. 


176    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

His  history  of  New  York  was  followed  in 
1893  by  "The  Wilderness  Hunter:  an  Ac 
count  of  the  Big  Game  of  the  United  States, 
and  Its  Chase  with  Horse,  Hound,  and  Rifle." 
This  is  a  hunting  history,  illustrated  with  pic 
tures  of  the  animals  killed  by  Mr.  Roosevelt 
himself,  besides  much  interesting  hunting  lore. 
He  collaborated  with  G.  B.  Grinnell  in  writing 
three  hunting  books  for  the  Boone  and 
Crockett  Club,  namely,  "American  Big  Game 
Hunting,"  "Hunting  in  Many  Lands,"  and 
"Trail  and  Camp  Fire."  He  also  collaborated 
with  Henry  Cabot  Lodge  in  the  preparation 
of  a  volume  of  "Hero  Tales  from  American 
History." 

In  1897,  ten  years  after  his  first  volume  of 
political  essays,  he  published  another  collec 
tion  under  the  title  "American  Ideals;  and 
Other  Essays,  Social  and  Political."  The  sub 
jects  of  the  various  chapters  show  pretty  well 
the  range  of  his  interests.  Here  they  are: 
"True  Americanism ;"  "The  Manly  Virtues 
and  Practical  Politics ;"  "The  College  Grad- 


THE  LITERARY  MAN  177 

uate  and  Public  Life ;"  "Phases  of  State  Leg 
islation  ;"  "Machine  Politics  in  New  York 
City ;"  "Six  Years  of  Civil  Service  Reform ;" 
"Administering  the  New  York  Police  Force ;" 
"The  Vice-Presidency  and  the  Campaign  of 
1896;"  "How  Not  to  Help  Our  Poorer 
Brother ;"  "The  Monroe  Doctrine ;"  "Wash 
ington's  Forgotten  Maxims ;"  "National  Life 
and  Character;"  "Social  Evolution;"  and 
"The  Law  of  Civilisation  and  Decay." 

He  told  the  story  of  the  raising  of  the  regi 
ment  of  Rough  Riders  and  of  its  career  in 
Cuba  and  afterward,  in  a  volume  published 
in  1899.  As  the  regiment  itself  was  unique, 
this  history  is  unrivalled  for  the  frankness  with 
which  the  story  is  told,  and  for  the  skill  of 
the  writer  in  selecting  from  a  large  mass  of 
materials  that  which  would  give  the  proper 
impression  of  what  was  done,  and  at  the  same 
time  preserve  the  human  interest  in  a  military 
campaign. 

In  the  following  year  he  published  a  "Life  of 
Oliver  Cromwell,"  which  is  deeply  interesting, 


178    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

for  it  presents  the  picture  of  one  man  of 
action  through  the  eyes  of  another  man  of 
action,  who  is  also  at  the  same  time  a  trained 
writer  and  student  of  history.  His  third  vol 
ume  of  essays,  "The  Strenuous  Life,"  ap 
peared  in  1900  also.  And  in  1902,  "The 
Deer  Family,"  another  hunting  book,  was 
issued,  with  his  name  as  collaborator  with 
others  on  the  title-page.  A  volume  of  his 
"Addresses  and  Messages"  came  from  the 
press  in  the  spring  of  1904,  but  that  is  the 
ordinary  product  of  his  public  life  rather  than 
the  deliberate  work  of  a  literary  man.  His 
latest  book,  "Outdoor  Pastimes  of  an  Ameri 
can  Hunter,"  appeared  in  the  autumn  of 
1905.  It  contains  the  record  of  his  hunting 
excursions  after  he  became  President,  and  in 
cludes  the  cougar  hunt  of  1901,  the  Yellow 
stone  trip  with  John  Burroughs  in  1903,  the 
Yosernite  trip  of  the  same  year,  the  wolf  hunt 
in  Oklahoma,  and  the  bear  hunt  in  Colorado 
in  the  spring  of  1905.  A  most  remarkable 
illustration  of  his  versatility  is  found  in  an 


THE  LITERARY  MAN  179 

article  from  his  pen  on  the  "Ancient  Irish 
Sagas,"  which  appeared  in  the  Century 
Magazine  for  January,  1907. 

These  books  on  varied  subjects,  published 
during  a  period  covering  more  than  twenty 
years,  certainly  justify  calling  him  a  literary 
man.  Indeed,  the  profession  of  literature  is 
the  only  one  which  he  has,  save  that  of  state 
craft  ;  and  he  was  about  equally  occupied  with 
both  till  the  demands  of  official  life  absorbed 
his  attention.  In  the  spring  of  1904,  when 
he  spoke  at  a  dinner  of  the  Periodical  Pub 
lishers'  Association  in  Washington,  he  took 
a  retrospective  look  at  his  literary  career,  as 
though  it  were  ended,  for  he  said,  "In  the 
days  of  my  youth  I  was  a  literary  man." 

A  pleasant  picture  of  him  on  this  occasion 
was  presented  by  Mr.  Walter  Wellman  in  the 
Chicago  Record-Herald.  He  wrote: 

"Probably  President  Roosevelt  never  spent  a 
happier  two  hours  than  last  night,  when  he 
was  the  guest  of  honour  of  the  Periodical  Pub 
lishers.  The  President  had  agreed  to  stay  at 


180    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

the  dinner  from  9.45  to  11  o'clock,  but  he 
liked  the  show  so  well  he  remained  till  mid 
night  and  then  held  a  reception,  greeting 
every  one  present.  Mr.  Roosevelt  made  a 
speech  to  the  publishers,  the  authors  and 
artists  and  their  other  guests,  and  was  enthu 
siastically  applauded.  It  was  not  the  best 
speech  the  President  has  ever  made,  but  it  was 
good  enough,  and  it  pleased  the  people  who 
heard  it.  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  not  an  orator,  and 
makes  no  pretensions  in  that  direction,  but 
there  is  something  very  fascinating  about  his 
earnestness,  and  he  captivated  the  men  of  the 
periodical  press,  as  he  has  captivated  many 
audiences  before.  Many  were  pleased  at  the 
manner  in  which  Mr.  Roosevelt  threw  himself 
into  the  spirit  of  the  occasion.  The  wit  and 
the  humour  of  the  addresses  had  no  more  ap 
preciative  listener  than  the  President  of  the 
United  States.  He  expressed  his  pleasure  by 
characteristic  shakes  of  the  head,  strenuous 
gestures,  broad  smiles,  and  congratulations 
waved  across  the  banquet-hall.  It  was  a  com- 


THE  LITERARY  MAN  181 

nion  remark  among  the  eminent  authors, 
artists,  and  publishers  assembled  that  it  is  a 
fine  thing  to  have  a  President  who  is  so  human, 
so  warm  in  his  sympathies,  so  keen  and  dis 
criminating  in  his  understanding  of  all  hu 
man  endeavour." 

Mr.  Roosevelt  is  not  only  a  producer  of 
literature,  he  is  an  appreciator  of  it  as  well. 
He  goes  out  of  his  wray  to  make  friends  with 
men  and  women  who  write  books  that  please 
him.  Many  such  have  been  guests  at  the 
White  House,  from  Mr.  Finley  P.  Dunne,  the 
author  of  the  "Dooley"  papers,  to  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Lyman  Abbott,  who  produces  literature 
of  a  somewhat  different  type.  Mr.  James  B. 
Connolly,  author  of  vigorous  sea  tales,  has 
been  among  his  guests.  Mr.  Connolly  enlisted 
in  the  navy  as  a  yeoman,  in  1906,  for  the  pur 
pose  of  glorifying  the  American  seaman  in 
realistic  fiction.  He  took  this  step  largely 
through  the  President's  influence.  Mr.  Ed 
ward  Arlington  Robinson's  volume  of  poems, 
"Children  of  the  Night,"  pleased  him  so  much 


182    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

that  he  wrote  a  review  of  it  for  the  Outlook, 
and  he  has  taken  pains  to  commend  the  short 
stories  of  Mr.  Percival  Gibbon.  When  he 
was  receiving  a  company  of  delegates  to  a 
convention  of  hardware  jobbers,  he  quickly 
recognised  among  them  Colonel  J.  R.  Nut 
ting,  of  Davenport,  Iowa,  although  he  had 
seen  him  but  once  before,  and  that  for  only  a 
few  minutes. 

"Hello,  Colonel,  I'm  glad  to  see  you,"  said 
the  President.  "How  are  all  my  old  friends  in 
Davenport,  and  especially  how  is  Miss 
French?*  Tell  her  I  read  all  she  writes." 

It  is  not  fiction  alone  that  interests  him, 
for  he  astonished  a  company  of  delegates  to 
the  conventions  of  the  American  Philological 
Association  and  the  Archaeological  Institute 
of  America  in  January,  1907,  by  saying  to 
them: 

"I  have  been  very  much  interested  recently 
in  reading  Victor  Berard's  work  on  the  Phoeni 
cians  and  the  Odyssey;  and  this  Association, 
*Octave  Thanet. 

I 


THE  LITERARY  MAN  183 

apart  even  from  the  actual  work  it  does,  in 
directly  accomplishes  much  more  by  stimulat 
ing,  encouraging,  and  producing  the  kind  of 
scholarship  which  will  here  and  there  produce 
the  work  of  a  Victor  Berard  in  our  country." 
Out  of  his  wide  reading  and  deep  thinking 
there  has  come  an  intellectual  attitude  and  a 
literary  style  that  rests  on  the  foundations  of 
the  best  that  has  been  said  and  done.  An  in 
teresting  and  significant  commentary  on  that 
style  and  that  state  of  mind  was  made  by  Mr. 
R.  J.  Walker,  of  St.  Paul's  School,  West  Ken 
sington,  in  a  letter  to  the  London  Times  com 
menting  on  the  President's  inaugural  address 
of  March  4,  1905.  Mr.  Walker  wrote:  "May 
I  crave  space  to  call  attention  to  the  extraordi 
nary  resemblance  in  spirit  between  President 
Roosevelt's  inaugural  oration  and  the  speeches 
of  Pericles  in  the  second  book  of  Thucy dides  ? 
I  doubt  whether  there  is  a  sentence  in  the 
English  which  cannot  be  paralleled  in  the 
Greek,  as  regards  meaning  at  least,  and 
often  as  regards  form.  I  set  to-day  a  section 


184    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

of  the  oration  for  translation  into  Greek 
prose,  and  I  asked  our  head  form,  'Where  does 
this  English  come  from?'  The  general  an 
swer  was,  'From  Jowett's  translation  of 
Thucydides!'" 


IX 

THE  MILITARY  MAN 


MR.  ROOSEVELT  has  said  that  the  reason  he 
did  not  accept  the  command  of  the  regiment 
of  Rough  Riders  which  was  organised  in 
1898  to  engage  in  the  war  with  Spain,  was 
that  he  "was  entirely  inexperienced  in  military 
work."  Then  he  explained  that  he  did  not 
know  how  to  get  the  regiment  equipped  most 
rapidly,  and  he  would  have  lost  valuable  time 
learning.  But  he  was  not  entirely  ignorant  of 
military  affairs.  He  enlisted  in  the  Eighth 
Regiment  of  the  National  Guard  of  the  State 
of  New  York  in  1884  and  served  four  years. 
Part  of  the  time  he  was  captain  of  a  company. 
Now,  no  man  can  serve  four  years  in  the  New 
York  militia  and  command  a  company  in  it 
without  knowing  something  of  the  theory  and 
practice  of  arms. 
Mr.  Roosevelt  had  passed  through  the 


186    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

training  school  of  the  citizen  soldier,  and  was 
a  member  of  the  theoretical  reserve  from 
which  the  friends  of  the  National  Guard  like 
to  think  the  commanders  of  companies  and 
regiments  of  volunteers  will  be  selected,  if 
there  should  ever  be  need  of  raising  a  large 
army  for  national  defence.  It  was  the  natural 
and  the  expected  thing  that  a  graduated  Na 
tional  Guard  officer  should  be  one  of  the  com 
manders  of  a  regiment  of  volunteers  in  the 
Spanish  War.  In  the  early  days  of  the  Civil 
War  there  were  brigadier-generals  with  less 
military  training  than  he  had.  Mr.  Roose 
velt  enlisted  in  the  militia  because  he  thought 
that  was  one  of  the  duties  which  he  owed  to 
his  State. 

His  study  of  military  affairs  began  early,  as 
when  he  was  twenty-four  years  old,  two 
years  before  he  enlisted,  he  wrote  his  naval 
history  of  the  War  of  1812.  It  was,  therefore, 
not  without  a  long-standing  interest  in  the 
affairs  of  the  Navy  that  he  resigned  from  the 
presidency  of  the  New  York  Police  Board  to 


THE  MILITARY  MAN  187 

become  an  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy. 
But  it  was  not  so  much  because  of  his  liking 
for  naval  affairs  that  he  accepted  the  place 
as  because  he  foresaw  that  there  was  to  be 
trouble  with  Spain  over  Cuba.  He  had  advo 
cated  intervention  by  the  United  States  to  put 
an  end  to  an  intolerable  situation  as  well  as  to 
drive  Spain  from  this  side  of  the  ocean. 

"Now  that  my  party  had  come  to  power," 
he  writes  in  "The  Rough  Riders,"  "I  felt  it  in 
cumbent  on  me,  by  word  and  deed,  to  do  all  I 
could  to  secure  the  carrying  out  of  the  policy 
in  which  I  so  heartily  believed,  and  from  the 
beginning  I  had  determined  that  if  a  war 
came,  somehow  or  other  I  was  going  to  the 
front." 

The  Assistant  Secretaryship  of  the  Navy 
presented  an  opportunity,  not  only  to  use  his 
influence,  as  part  of  the  administration,  to 
bring  about  intervention  in  the  affairs  of 
Cuba,  but  to  assist  in  the  preparation  to  make 
that  intervention  effective.  He  talked  inter 
vention  with  everybody  he  could  get  to  listen 


188    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

to  him,  discussed  plans  of  campaign  with 
soldiers  and  sailors  alike,  and  co-operated 
with  Secretary  Long,  his  superior,  in  getting 
the  Navy  itself  into  shape  for  war.  He  had 
previously  co-operated  with  Mr.  Long  in  the 
Republican  National  Convention  of  1884  in 
an  attempt  to  secure  the  nomination  of 
George  F.  Edmunds  to  the  Presidency.  The 
late  Senator  Cushman  K.  Davis  once  said  of 
his  work  in  the  Navy  Department,  "If  it  had 
not  been  for  Roosevelt  we  should  not  have  been 
able  to  strike  the  blow  that  we  did  at  Manila. 
It  needed  just  Roosevelt's  energy  and  prompt 
ness." 

He  knew  that  the  guns  of  the  Navy  would 
be  useless  unless  the  gunners  could  shoot 
straight.  There  had  been  little  target  prac 
tice  in  past  years,  for  target  practice  with  big 
guns  is  expensive.  Congress,  however,  was 
persuaded  to  appropriate  eight  hundred  thou 
sand  dollars  for  this  purpose.  Powder  was 
bought  with  the  money  and  distributed  among 
the  ships.  The  gunners  then  fired  with  real 


THE  MILITARY  MAN  189 

ammunition  at  real  targets.  Within  a  month 
he  was  sent  back  before  the  Congressional 
Committee  to  ask  for  five  hundred  thousand 
dollars  more. 

"Where  is  that  eight  hundred  thousand 
dollars  you  got  a  little  while  ago?"  one  of  the 
committee-men  asked. 

"Burned,"  was  the  laconic  reply. 

The  money  was  spent  to  some  purpose,  as 
the  marksmanship  of  the  naval  gunners  at 
the  battle  of  Santiago  proved. 

The  deliberation  with  which  many  of  the 
officials  in  Washington  went  about  their  busi 
ness  tried  his  patience.  He  held  a  subordinate 
position  and,  of  course,  had  to  wait  on  the 
pleasure  of  his  superiors,  even  when  they  were 
not  delayed  by  the  inaction  of  Congress.  On 
one  occasion  he  had  urged  a  committee  of 
Congressmen  to  approve  certain  things  which 
he  thought  should  be  done  at  once.  The  mem 
bers  of  the  committee  talked  and  talked  with 
out  reaching  any  conclusion.  An  hour  passed 
and  they  were  still  talking,  when  Mr.  Roosevelt 


190    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

sprang  to  his  feet  with  considerable  show  of 
impatience,  and  said: 

"Gentlemen,  if  God  had  referred  the  ark  to 
a  committee  on  naval  affairs  like  this,  it's  my 
opinion  that  it  wouldn't  have  been  built  yet." 

Before  war  was  declared  it  was  reported  that 
the  Spanish  fleet  was  about  to  sail  for  Cuba, 
and  Mr.  Roosevelt  urged  that  in  view  of  all 
the  circumstances,  word  be  sent  to  Spain  that 
the  despatch  of  the  fleet  would  be  regarded 
as  an  act  of  war.  He  had  explained  his  views 
to  President  McKinley,  and  the  President  sent 
for  him  one  day  to  tell  the  same  things  to  the 
Cabinet.  What  happened  was  told  in  1901, 
after  Mr.  Roosevelt  had  become  Presi 
dent.  As  he  entered  the  room  where  the 
Cabinet  was  gathered,  President  McKinley 
asked  him: 

"What  would  you  advise  as  to  the  action  of 
the  United  States  in  connection  with  Cervera's 
fleet?" 

After  pressing  his  lips  firmly  together  for  a 
moment,  Mr.  Roosevelt  spoke: 


THE  MILITARY  MAN  191 

"With  all  due  deference  to  you,  Mr.  Presi 
dent,  since  you  ask  me  for  my  honest  opinion, 
I  will  say  that  my  advice  is  to  meet  Cervera 
at  the  Canaries  and  sink  every  ship  in  the 
fleet." 

"But  that  would  be  an  act  of  war,"  the  Presi 
dent  replied. 

"Certainly  it  would,"  admitted  Mr.  Roose 
velt,  "but  I  have  noticed  in  my  study  of  his 
tory  that  it  is  the  nation  that  gets  in  the  first 
blow  which  usually  wins,  and  I  believe  in  get 
ting  in  the  first  blow." 

This  advice  was  not  taken,  for  reasons  that 
seemed  to  the  responsible  officers  to  be  good 
and  sufficient.  The  Spanish  fleet,  with  its  tor 
pedo  boats,  sailed  under  command  of  Admiral 
Cervera.  Many  of  the  older  naval  officers 
advocated  a  policy  of  caution.  They  advised 
that  the  men  in  command  of  our  ships  should 
exercise  great  care  and  on  no  account  get  near 
enough  to  the  torpedo  boats  to  risk  the  loss  of 
their  own  ships.  There  was  great  dread  of  the 
destructive  power  of  the  torpedoes  in  those 


19^    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

days.  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  discussing  this  sit 
uation  one  day  with  a  friend.  He  got  so 
indignant  at  what  he  regarded  as  the  stupidity 
of  the  policy  of  dodging  the  enemy,  that  he 
jumped  from  his  chair  and  paced  up  and 
down  the  room,  shooting  words  from  his  mouth 
like  bullets  from  a  rapid-fire  gun. 

"Confound  it  all,"  he  exclaimed,  "of  course 
we  must  take  risks.  But  what  is  the  good  of  a 
naval  officer  who  would  not  run  some  risk  when 
the  necessity  arose?  Suppose  a  torpedo  boat 
does  destroy  one  of  our  ships,  you  may  be 
sure  there  will  be  no  more  Spanish  torpedo 
boats  after  that  engagement  is  over.  It  is 
nonsense  to  talk  about  keeping  our  ships  in 
port  while  the  Spanish  torpedo  boats  are  on 
the  sea.  We  must  go  out  and  find  them  and 
destroy  them.  And  that  would  not  be  difficult, 
because  I  don't  believe  they  are  half  so  danger 
ous  as  they  are  represented  to  be." 

There  was  a  lighter  side  to  all  this  hard  and 
earnest  work  in  preparation  for  possible  war. 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  good  digestion  and  high 


THE  MILITARY  MAN  193 

spirits  still  made  it  possible  for  him  to  enjoy 
life  and  to  take  many  things  less  seriously. 
He  liked  to  play  pranks  upon  his  associates. 
On  one  occasion  he  accompanied  a  squadron 
that  went  out  for  two  days'  target  practice, 
to  shoot  away  some  of  the  powder  that  he  had 
persuaded  Congress  to  permit  the  Navy  De 
partment  to  buy.  When  the  squadron  was 
about  to  return,  the  officers  were  invited  on 
board  the  flag-ship  as  the  guests  of  Mr. 
Roosevelt.  They  talked  for  some  time,  as 
the  story  is  told,  and  as  no  creature  com 
forts  appeared  they  began  to  look  inquiringly 
at  one  another.  Mr.  Roosevelt  understood  the 
glances,  and,  without  the  flicker  of  a  smile, 
he  said: 

"Will  you  step  into  the  cabin,  gentlemen, 
and  have  some  tea?" 

The  officers  knew  that  strong  waters  were 
forbidden  on  board  ship,  but  they  also  knew 
that  an  appetizer  by  any  other  name  would 
sit  as  well  on  the  stomach.  So  the  movement 
toward  the  cabin  was  prompt  and  unanimous. 


191    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

There,  in  the  centre  of  a  great  table,  rested  a 
punch-bowl  of  magnificent  proportions,  filled 
nearly  to  the  brim  with  a  liquid  a  shade  darker 
than  amber.  In  its  centre  floated  an  island  of 
ice.  Sprays  of  mint  extended  their  slender 
leaves  over  its  brim,  and  pieces  of  lemon  and 
other  fruits  floated  on  the  surface  of  the  cool 
and  tempting  liquid. 

The  old  commodore,  with  the  colour  of  the 
sun  on  his  face  and  the  dryness  of  the  desert 
in  his  throat,  turned  eagerly  toward  this  oasis. 
He  stirred  the  ladle  lovingly  in  the  bowl  while 
the  others  gathered  about  him.  He  held  his 
glass,  filled  to  the  brim,  between  his  eye  and 
the  sunlight  that  came  in  through  the  cabin 
window,  and  the  clatter  and  clink  of  glasses 
sounded  cheerfully  as  each  officer  filled  to  the 
occasion.  With  an  air  of  contentment  and 
anticipatory  joy  the  commodore  brought  the 
glass  to  his  lips.  Then  as  all  lifted  their 
glasses  to  follow  his  example,  a  look  of  aston 
ishment  passed  over  his  face,  giving  way  to 
one  of  pain. 


THE  MILITARY  MAN  195 

"I'll  be  blowed  if  it  ain't  tea  !"  he  gasped. 

And  the  regulations  were  still  intact. 

These  officers  and  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  every 
other  close  observer  of  the  signs  of  the  times 
knew  when  the  Maine  was  blown  up  in  Havana 
harbour  that  war  could  not  be  delayed  much 
longer.  And  Mr.  Roosevelt  began  to  lay  his 
plans  to  get  into  it.  He  might  have  gone  as 
a  staff  officer,  but  he  did  not  care  for  that  kind 
of  duty.  He  sought  to  go  as  a  field  officer  under 
General  Francis  V.  Greene,  but  there  were  no 
vacancies.  It  was  not  until  Congress  author 
ised  the  organisation  of  three  cavalry  regi 
ments  from  among  the  frontiersmen  and  cow 
boys  of  the  West  that  he  found  a  way  to  go. 

Secretary  Alger,  of  the  War  Department, 
offered  to  make  him  a  colonel  of  one  of  them, 
but,  as  already  intimated,  he  did  not  think  he 
had  sufficient  experience  in  equipping  a  regi 
ment  for  the  field  to  take  command  at  once. 
His  friend,  Leonard  Wood,  now  major-gen 
eral,  was  made  colonel,  and  he  accepted  second 
place. 


196    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

After  he  had  decided  to  resign  there  were 
still  some  matters  to  be  arranged  in  the  Navy 
Department  before  it  was  announced  that  he 
was  to  go.  But  the  newspaper  men  heard  a 
rumour  of  his  intentions,  and  one  of  them 
went,  after  midnight,  to  verify  the  report  at 
the  home  of  his  brother-in-law,  Commander 
Cowles,  where  he  was  staying.  The  man  knew 
Mr.  Roosevelt  personally,  and  thought  that  on 
the  strength  of  the  acquaintance  he  might  be 
able  to  get  some  information.  He  discovered 
that  however  impulsive  the  Assistant  Secre 
tary  of  the  Navy  might  seem,  there  were  some 
things  he  could  not  be  surprised  into  saying. 
The  newspaper  man  said  afterward : 

"I  stepped  briskly  up  the  steps  and  rang  the 
bell.  The  house  was  very  dark,  every  blind 
drawn  and  not  a  ray  anywhere.  Again  I 
rang,  but  no  sound.  Determined  not  to  be 
bluffed,  I  rang  the  bell  once  more  and  soon 
heard  footsteps  above.  The  window-sash  went 
up  and  Mr.  Roosevelt  leaned  out  and  wanted 
to  know  what  I  wanted. 


THE  MILITARY  MAN  197 

"  'Good-evening,  Mr.  Roosevelt,'  said  I,  'this 
is .  Is  it  true  that ' 

"  'Why,  Mr.  -  — ,'  he  interrupted,  'I  am 
surprised.' 

"  'So  am  I,  Mr.  Roosevelt,  but  it  is  an  im 
portant  matter  and  I'll  explain  later.  I  would 
like  to  know  if— 

"  'Why,  Mr.  -    — ,  I  am  surprised.' 

"  'I  appreciate  that  fact,'  I  persisted,  'but 
it  is  exceedingly  important  to  know  the  exact 
facts.  Is  it  true  that  — 

"  'Why,  Mr.  -  — ,'  broke  in  the  cold,  calm 
voice,  'I  am  very  much  surprised,'  and  down 
went  the  sash  and  back  to  bed  went  Mr.  Roose 
velt.  It  was  a  cold  dash  and  it  took  me  some 
time  to  recover  from  the  shock ;  but  Mr. 
Roosevelt  explained  later  that  he  had  had  a 
particular  anxiety  not  to  have  the  story  ap 
pear  that  day." 

But  his  purpose  soon  became  generally 
known,  and  then  there  was  raised  probably  the 
most  remarkable  regiment  that  was  ever  en 
listed  for  any  war.  There  were  millionaires  in 


198    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

it  and  men  who  owned  nothing;  college  grad 
uates  and  men  whose  only  schooling  had  been 
in  the  school  of  life;  men  with  social  graces 
and  experience  and  men  who  did  not  know  the 
difference  between  a  demi  tasse  and  a  demi 
john;  but  if  they  discovered  the  difference, 
would  prefer  the  demijohn.  But  the  men  were 
all  alike  in  that  they  were  brave,  adventurous 
spirits. 

Not  only  was  the  regiment  itself  unique,  but 
the  efforts  made  by  Colonel  Wood  and  Lieu 
tenant-Colonel  Roosevelt  to  get  it  equipped 
and  drilled  and  ordered  to  the  front,  and  then 
the  expedients  to  which  they  resorted  to  make 
it  possible  to  obey  the  order  that  they  had  re 
ceived,  make  one  of  the  most  remarkable  series 
of  incidents  in  the  history  of  the  volunteer 
soldier. 

The  War  Department  was  ill  prepared  for 
the  war,  and  the  regiments,  which  were  anx 
ious  to  get  their  equipment  without  delay,  had 
to  look  out  for  themselves  or  be  neglected. 
Through  the  zeal  of  its  two  commanding  offi- 


THE  MILITARY  MAN  199 

cers,  the  Rough  Riders  got  Krag-Jorgensen 
rifles,  so  that  they  might  be  assigned  to  duty 
with  the  regular  army.  Through  their  energy 
they  were  in  condition  to  be  sent  to  the  front 
before  either  of  the  other  volunteer  cavalry 
regiments.  But  it  was  only  after  the  most 
strenuous  exertions  that  they  succeeded  in 
getting  ordered  to  the  rendezvous  in  Florida. 
Mr.  Roosevelt  sent  telegrams  day  after  day, 
beseeching  all  the  men  in  authority  that  he 
could  think  of,  to  get  his  men  into  service  as 
soon  as  possible.  Finally,  after  much  exer 
tion,  the  command  to  go  to  Florida  was  ex 
tracted  from  the  War  Department.  So  eager 
were  they  to  get  off  that  when  they  got  to 
Tampa  and  received  the  command  to  embark 
on  a  transport  at  Port  Tampa,  nine  miles 
away,  Mr.  Roosevelt  seized  a  train  of  empty 
coal  cars,  loaded  his  men  into  them  and  forced 
the  engineer  to  run  them  down  to  the  pier 
at  which  the  transport  was  to  be  moored.  In 
the  meantime,  Colonel  Wood  was  getting  the 
transport  up  to  the  pier.  Mr.  Roosevelt 


200    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

learned  accidentally  that  two  other  regiments 
were  ordered  to  go  on  the  same  boat,  one  of 
which  contained  more  men  than  the  transport 
could  carry.  He  ran  at  full  speed  back  to  his 
train,  left  a  strong  guard  to  take  care  of  the 
baggage,  and  marched  the  rest  of  the  regiment 
at  double  quick  to  the  point  where  the  trans 
port  landed,  getting  there  just  in  time  to 
scramble  aboard  before  the  other  regiments 
arrived.  He  had  set  out  for  the  front  to  see 
fighting,  and  he  was  not  going  to  be  left  be 
hind  if  alertness  could  accomplish  anything. 
During  all  the  weeks  of  active  preparation 
for  this  embarkation  Mr.  Roosevelt  found 
time  to  read  various  things.  He  says  that  "to 
occupy  my  spare  moments"  he  read  M.  Demo- 
lin's  "Superiorite  des  Anglo-Saxons,"  in  the 
course  of  which  the  author  says  that  the  mili 
tarism  of  Latin  Europe  has  a  tendency  to 
deaden  the  power  of  individual  initiative.  The 
success  of  the  Rough  Riders  in  getting  to 
Cuba  in  the  face  of  great  obstacles  was  proof, 
in  Mr.  Roosevelt's  opinion,  that  "militarism" 


THE  MILITARY  MAN  201 

in  the  United  States  had  not  deadened  indi 
vidual  initiative — in  the  American  volunteer, 
at  any  rate. 

Instead  of  waiting  for  specific  orders  to  disem 
bark  after  the  transport  arrived  off  Santiago, 
the  pilot  of  one  of  the  naval  vessels  there  was 
secured  to  take  the  troop  ship  to  within  a 
hundred  yards  of  land;  the  men  were  carried 
off  in  boats,  and  the  officers'  horses  were 
thrown  overboard  to  swim  ashore.  They  had 
not  been  on  land  many  hours  before  the  march 
to  the  front  began.  It  has  been  said  that 
the  regiment  passed  the  extreme  outpost 
without  orders,  and  consequently  got  into  the 
fight  at  Las  Guasimas  the  next  morning  when 
no  fight  was  planned.  When  General  Shafter 
heard  the  news  of  the  engagement,  it  was  in  the 
form  of  a  report  that  the  regiment  had  been 
cut  to  pieces.  But  a  few  hours  later  he  re 
ceived  a  correct  report  of  the  engagement 
and  sent  a  note  to  Lieutenant-Colonel  Roose 
velt  congratulating  him  on  the  brilliant  suc 
cess  of  the  attack. 


202    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

Colonel  Wood  was  promoted  to  a  vacant 
brigadier-generalship  on  July  9,  1898,  be 
cause  he  was  the  senior  colonel  on  the  field, 
and  the  lieutenant-colonel  became  colonel, 
and  commanded  the  regiment  from  a  short 
time  after  the  battle  of  San  Juan  Hill  till  it 
was  mustered  out  at  Montauk  Point. 

The  Rough  Riders  did  themselves  credit  in 
Cuba,  but  their  part  in  the  campaign  which 
ended  with  the  fall  of  Santiago  was  small,  as 
the  part  of  any  single  regiment  was  bound 
to  be.  The  interest  which  the  regiment 
aroused  throughout  the  country  was  due  more 
to  its  romantic  composition  and  history  than 
to  its  brilliant  achievements,  though  its  record 
is  an  honourable  one.  Mr.  Roosevelt  placed 
it  properly  in  history  when  he  dedicated  his 
entertaining  tale  of  its  career  in  these  words : 
"On  behalf  of  the  Rough  Riders  I  dedicate 
this  book  to  the  officers  and  men  of  the  five 
regular  regiments  which,  together  with  mine, 
made  up  the  cavalry  division  at  Santiago." 
It  was  only  a  sixth  of  the  cavalry  division, 


THE  MILITARY  MAN  203 

the  regulars  in  which  did  the  most  difficult 
work. 

The  men  who  fought  together,  and  suffered 
privations  together  afterward,  through  the 
breaking  down  of  the  War  Department,  are 
bound  together  by  a  freemasonry  whose  initia 
tory  ritual  was  read  to  the  sound  of  bullets 
at  Las  Guasimas,  and  wrhen  two  of  them  meet 
all  other  men  must  wait  their  pleasure.  Refer 
ence  has  been  made  in  a  previous  chapter  to 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  presence  at  a  reunion  of  the 
regiment,  when  he  was  Governor  of  New 
York.  The  men  met  as  old  friends  who  had 
faced  death  together,  and  Mr.  Roosevelt  has 
consistently  acted  as  though  he  felt  that  every 
soldier,  private  or  officer,  who  fought  under 
him  was  entitled  to  his  special  consideration. 

One  of  them  confessed  to  him  while  he  was 
Governor  that  he  had  killed  a  man  in  self-de 
fence,  and  unless  he  could  hire  a  good  lawyer 
would  probably  be  convicted.  Mr.  Roosevelt, 
willing  that  the  man  should  have  his  case  fairly 
presented  in  court,  offered  to  let  him  have 


204    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

money  for  counsel  fees  when  it  was  needed. 
Months  passed  and  no  appeal  for  money  came. 
Finally  the  Governor  wrote,  asking  how  mat 
ters  stood.  Soon  this  reply  came  back,  at 
which  he  laughed  with  a  hearty  appreciation 
of  frontier  conditions :  "Don't  need  the  money 
now.  We  have  elected  a  Republican  District 
Attorney." 

Senator  Shelby  M.  Cullom,  of  Illinois,  once 
discovered  another  phase  of  the  loyalty  of  the 
Rough  Riders  to  one  another  when  he  called 
at  the  White  House  to  see  the  President.  He 
was  told  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  engaged. 

"Who's  there?"  he  asked  of  the  doorkeeper. 

"Somebody  who  was  in  the  Rough  Riders," 
was  the  reply. 

"Oh,  well,"  the  Senator  remarked,  smiling, 
as  he  turned  away,  "what  chance  has  a  mere 
Senator?" 

On  another  occasion  Senator  Bard,  of  Cali 
fornia,  took  a  constituent  to  see  the  President. 
The  man  was  one  of  the  members  of  the 
famous  regiment. 


THE  MILITARY  MAN  205 

"Mr.  President,"  the  Senator  began,  "I  want 
to  present  to  you  my  friend — 

"Why,  hello,  Jim!"  the  President  almost 
shouted.  "How  are  you?"  And  he  grasped 
the  man's  hand  with  his  usual  firm  and  hearty 

grip- 
Then  they  talked  together  for  ten  minutes 
or  more,  Senator  Bard  apparently  forgotten. 
As  the  men  were  leaving,  the  President  called 
out: 

"By  the  way,  Jim,  come  up  to  dinner  to 
night,  just  as  you  are."  Then  he  added,  as  if 
by  afterthought,  "And  be  sure  to  bring  Bard 
with  you." 

Through  all  of  his  military  career  there  ap 
pears  evidence  of  his  well-grounded  democracy 
as  well  as  of  his  strenuosity.  And  as  com- 
mander-in-chief  of  the  land  and  naval  forces 
of  the  nation,  he  is  now  in  hearty  sympathy 
with  all  men  who  are  striving  to  better  the 
service.  When  his  attention  was  called  to  the 
criticisms  made  by  an  officer  attached  to  the 
squadron  in  the  Far  East  he  remarked: 


206    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

"The  only  trouble  with  this  man  is  that  he 
thinks  our  Navy  is  a  few  laps  behind  the 
Turk's.  Leave  him  alone.  Just  so  long  as  we 
have  the  service  of  such  a  kicker  the  Turks 
will  never  get  ahead  of  us." 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN 


"I  HAVE  always  believed,"  said  Mr.  Roose 
velt  some  years  ago,  "that  every  man  should 
join  a  political  organisation  and  should  attend 
the  primaries ;  that  he  should  not  be  content  to 
be  merely  governed,  but  should  do  his  part  of 
the  work.  So,  after  leaving  college  I  went  to 
the  local  political  headquarters,  attended  all 
the  meetings,  and  took  my  part  in  whatever 
came  up.  There  arose  a  revolt  against  the 
Member  of  Assembly  from  that  district,  and 
I  was  nominated  to  succeed  him  and  was 
elected." 

On  another  occasion,  when  he  was  explain 
ing  why  he  continued  to  act  with  his  party 
when  he  had  worked  hard  to  prevent  the  nomi 
nation  of  James  G.  Elaine,  the  Presidential 
candidate  who  won  in  the  convention  of 
1884,  he  said:  "Whatever  good  I  have  accom- 


208    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

plishcd  has  been  through  the  Republican 
party." 

Mr.  Roosevelt  is  a  party  man,  because  he 
believes  in  using  the  tools  ready  to  his  hand. 
But  he  has  always  striven  to  make  his  party  an 
efficient  instrument  by  exerting  his  influence 
to  lead  it  to  indorse  the  policies  which  he 
favours.  On  many  occasions  he  has  declared 
that  he  believes  in  accepting  a  partial  good 
rather  than  bolting  his  party  when  the  com 
plete  good  cannot  be  obtained  at  once.  He 
has  no  patience  with  reformers  who  refuse  to 
work  with  an  old  political  organisation  when 
that  organisation  is  supporting  the  things  in 
which  the  reformers  believe. 

"Let's  take  what  we  can  get  now,  and  then 
when  we  can  get  more,  let's  take  that,"  has 
been  his  advice. 

He  became  an  office-holder  in  the  first  place 
because  he  thought  it  was  his  duty,  as  noted 
in  a  previous  chapter.  The  nomination  to  the 
New  York  Assembly  came  to  him  when  he  was 
twenty-three  years  old,  the  year  after  he  left 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  209 

college.  He  was  not  taken  seriously  at  first 
by  the  older  men  in  the  State  Legislature. 
They  thought  that  he  was  a  young  enthusiast 
who  would  not  do  anything  but  talk.  But 
they  soon  found  that  he  was  a  force  to  be 
reckoned  with.  The  second  year  in  Albany 
found  him  a  candidate  for  the  Speakership 
of  the  Assembly,  and  he  received  twenty-nine 
votes  out  of  seventy  in  the  Republican  caucus. 
He  was  made  chairman  of  the  Cities  Commit 
tee  in  his  third  term.  And  he  had  risen  to 
such  a  commanding  position  in  his  party  that 
he  was  made  one  of  the  four  delegates-at-large 
from  New  York  to  the  Republican  National 
Convention  in  1884. 

The  State  Convention  at  which  the  delegates 
were  elected  was  held  in  Utica  on  April  23d. 
The  friends  of  President  Arthur  hoped  to  se 
cure  the  four  delegates ;  while  the  friends  of 
James  G.  Elaine  and  George  F.  Edmunds  each 
hoped  to  capture  the  delegation.  Mr.  Roose 
velt  supported  Edmunds,  with  Senator  Joseph 
R.  Hawley  as  his  second  choice.  On  the  even- 


210    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

ing  before  the  convention  met  he  called  on 
Mr.  Warner  Miller,  one  of  the  Elaine  leaders, 
in  company  with  Congressman  James  W. 
Wadsworth,  and  told  Mr.  Miller  that  while  he 
favoured  Mr.  Edmunds,  he  was  unalterably 
opposed  to  the  nomination  of  President 
Arthur.  The  Elaine  men,  however,  objected 
to  sending  him  as  a  delegate,  not  only  be 
cause  he  opposed  Elaine,  but  because  he  then 
had  leanings  toward  free  trade.  The  Arthur 
delegates  attempted  to  compromise  with  the 
Elaine  delegates  on  the  election  of  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  and  Philip  Becker,  Arthur  men, 
and  Warner  Miller  and  Whitelaw  Reid,  Elaine 
men,  but  they  failed.  A  coalition,  however, 
was  effected  between  the  Edmunds  and  the 
Arthur  delegates,  and  they  succeeded  in  elect 
ing  Mr.  Roosevelt,  Andrew  D.  White,  John 
I.  Gilbert,  and  Edwin  Packard.  All  but  Mr. 
White  were  pronounced  Edmunds  men.  As 
there  were  not  many  Edmunds  delegates  in  the 
convention,  there  was  much  talk  about  the  tail 
wagging  the  dog.  Mr.  Roosevelt,  who  had 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  211 

been  applauded  heartily  whenever  he  spoke, 
was  one  of  the  most  popular  leaders  in  the 
convention.  His  vote  for  delegate-at-large 
was  a  fair  measure  of  the  favour  in  which  he 
was  held.  He  received  472  votes,  whereas  Mr. 
White  received  407,  Mr.  Gilbert  342,  and  Mr. 
Packard  only  256.  It  was  a  notable  personal 
triumph.  His  own  views  of  that  triumph  have 
been  set  forth  in  the  interesting  letter  to  the 
Honourable  S.  N.  D.  North,  which  appears  in 
a  previous  chapter.  The  comment  of  the  spe 
cial  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Tribune 
who  reported  the  proceedings  of  the  conven 
tion  is  almost  as  interesting.  He  wrote: 

"Mr.  Roosevelt  was  the  active  man  in  the  so- 
called  Edmunds  group,  and  the  most  amusing 
thing  in  the  whole  business  was  the  sudden 
affection  shown  for  Roosevelt  by  George 
Bliss,  Robert  G.  McCord,  Michael  Cregan, 
John  J.  O'Brien,  and  other  New  York  men 
who  have  heretofore  spoken  of  him  in  a  most 
contemptuous  manner." 

He  was  called  to  the  platform  to  make  a 


212    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

speech  after  the  result  of  the  voting  was  an 
nounced,  and  said: 

"Gentlemen :  I  have  nothing  to  say  to  you 
further  than  to  thank  you  heartily  for 
the  honour  you  have  conferred  upon  me  in 
electing  me  as  a  delegate-at-large  from  the 
great  Empire  State  to  Chicago.  I  shall  try 
to  so  behave  myself  as  best  to  subserve  the  in 
terests  of  the  Republican  party  and  to  make 
you  feel  no  regret  at  the  course  you  have 
taken  in  sending  me."  [Tremendous  ap 
plause.] 

When  the  Edmunds  delegates  got  together 
in  Chicago  on  the  eve  of  the  National  Con 
vention  beginning  on  June  3d,  Mr.  Roosevelt 
made  another  speech,  in  the  course  of  which  he 
said  that  much  fault  had  been  found  because 
at  the  Utica  convention  the  tail  had  wagged 
the  dog.  It  was  admitted  that  it  was  com 
mendable  of  the  tail,  but  it  had  killed  the  dog. 
At  the  present  convention  he  said  the  tail  pro 
posed  to  wag  two  dogs. 

A  test  of  strength  came  on  the  election  of  a 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  213 

temporary  chairman,  when  the  Edmunds  men 
threw  their  strength  to  John  R.  Lynch,  of 
Mississippi,  a  negro.  Lynch  was  elected  and 
Mr.  Roosevelt  then  said: 

"Arthur  is  a  dead  candidate  as  a  result  of 
that  vote  and  we  have  checked  Blaine.  Mr. 
Lodge  [Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  of  Massachu 
setts]  and  myself  worked  all  night  to  accom 
plish  that  result.  We  feel  greatly  gratified. 
It  will  be  a  long  convention,  and  either  Ed 
munds,  Hawley,  Harrison,  or  Sherman  will 
be  nominated." 

The  next  day  he  admitted  that  Blaine  was 
"so  far  ahead  that  he  is  dangerous,"  and  when 
Blaine  was  finally  nominated,  he  was  bitterly 
disappointed.  At  first  he  refused  to  make  any 
comment  on  the  result,  but  when  urged  he  said : 

"There  are  scores  of  people  in  my  Assembly 
District  in  New  York  who  desired  the  nomina 
tion  of  Mr.  Blaine ;  but  I  regard  the  nomina 
tion  of  Mr.  Blaine  as  the  result  of  mistaken 
popular  enthusiasm." 

He  was  almost  immediately  approached  by 


214     THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

some  of  the  anti-Blaine  leaders  who  desired 
him  to  assist  in  putting  an  independent  ticket 
in  the  field;  but  he  declined  to  entertain  the 
proposition,  and  later  took  the  stump  for 
Elaine. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Roscoe  Conkling 
spoke  of  him  as  "that  dentificial  young  man 
with  more  teeth  than  brains."  But  other  ob 
servers  held  different  opinions.  One  of  them 
was  Mr.  Andrew  D.  White,  who,  before  he 
was  sent  to  Chicago  as  Mr.  Roosevelt's  col 
league,  said  of  him  in  his  classroom  at  Cornell 
University : 

"Young  gentlemen,  some  of  you  may  enter 
public  life.  I  call  your  attention  to  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  now  in  our  Legislature.  He  is  on 
the  right  road  to  success.  It  is  dangerous  to 
predict  a  future  for  a  young  man,  but  let  me 
say  that  if  any  man  of  his  age  was  ever 
pointed  straight  for  the  Presidency,  that  man 
is  Theodore  Roosevelt." 

Another  of  these  prophetic  observers  was 
Baron  Speck  von  Sternburg,  now  German 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  215 

Ambassador  in  Washington,  who  first  became 
acquainted  with  Mr.  Roosevelt  when  the  latter 
was  a  member  of  the  National  Civil  Service 
Commission.  The  Baron  once  said  to  some 
friends  soon  after  he  came  back  to  this  coun 
try  from  a  leave  of  absence: 

"As  I  return  to  America  as  German  Ambas 
sador  I  am  reminded  of  the  changes  that  have 
taken  place  since  I  was  here  nearly  twenty 
years  ago  as  a  military  attache.  Then,  your 
President  was  a  Civil  Service  Commissioner. 
I  do  not  pose  as  a  prophet,  but  when  I  first 
met  Mr.  Roosevelt  I  was  deeply  impressed  with 
his  powerful  personality,  his  untiring  energy, 
and  essential  sincerity  of  purpose.  It  was  this 
combination  which  convinced  me  that  some 
day  I  should  see  him  at  the  head  of  this  great 
nation.  When  I  congratulated  him  on  his  ap 
pointment  as  Police  Commissioner  in  New 
York  I  added: 

"  'When  I  again  congratulate  you,  Mr. 
Roosevelt,  you  will  be  one  step  nearer  the 
White  House.' 


216    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

"On  hearing  of  his  appointment  as  Assistant 
Secretary  of  the  Navy,  I  wrote  him  from  Pe 
king: 

1  'Permit   me  to  congratulate  you   on   this 
second  step  nearer  the  Presidency.' 

"When  he  was  elected  Governor  of  New  York 
I  telegraphed  him : 

"  'The  next  time  I  offer  congratulations  it 
will  be  to  President  Roosevelt.' 

"I  felt  sure  he  would  be  President,  because  I 
knew  the  stuff  he  was  made  of.  To  me,  and 
the  same  opinion  prevails  in  Europe,  your 
President  is  the  personification  of  what  is  good 
and  great  in  America." 

Benjamin  Harrison,  who  as  President  ap 
pointed  Mr.  Roosevelt  to  the  Civil  Service 
Commission,  wrote  in  1898 :  *  "Careful,  pains 
taking,  and  vigorous,  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  to-day 
one  of  the  best  examples  of  Presidential  tim 
ber  in  the  country.  He  seems  to  stand  out 
among  his  fellow-citizens  as  an  example 
* Success,  November,  1901. 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  217 

worthy  of  their  consideration,  and  although  he 
is  too  young  to  rank  as  a  statesman,  he  has, 
nevertheless,  the  qualities  that  will  ultimately 
make  him  a  statesman.  Should  Mr.  Roosevelt 
aspire  to  become  President  of  the  United 
States,  I  believe  that  he  will  ultimately  be  suc 
cessful.  First,  because  he  has  the  courage 
requisite ;  and,  secondly,  the  character.  His 
varied  life  as  ranchman,  hunter,  soldier,  and 
politician  has  placed  him  in  such  close  proxim 
ity  with  so  many  different  men  that  they  have 
had  ample  opportunity  to  judge  of  his  quali 
ties,  and  to  understand  when  he  says  or  does 
a  thing." 

As  appears  from  the  letter  on  his  expectation 
to  devote  himself  to  literature,  quoted  in  an-« 
other  chapter,  he  did  not  share  the  confidence 
of  his  friends  in  his  own  future.  The  men 
who  get  on  in  politics  commonly  use  different 
methods,  and  for  a  time  he  thought  that  suc 
cess  could  be  won  only  by  adopting  their 
methods.  He  preferred  unofficial  station  to 
public  life  under  such  conditions.  He  has 


218    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

usually  been  willing  to  respond,  however,  when 
his  party  has  called.  He  responded  when 
asked  to  work  for  the  election  of  Blaine  in 
1884 ;  and  when  he  was  requested  to  accept  the 
regular  Republican  nomination  for  Mayor  of 
New  York,  to  run  against  Abram  S.  Hewitt, 
the  Tammany  candidate,  and  Henry  George, 
the  candidate  of  the  labour  party,  he  con 
sented,  and  went  down  to  defeat  with  a  smiling 
face. 

His  next  public  service  was  in  Washington, 
to  which  he  was  called  by  President  Harrison. 
"In  1889,  when  the  Civil  Service  Commission 
was  in  need  of  improvement,  I  found  the  neces 
sity  of  having  a  business  man  in  the  commis 
sion  rather  than  a  politician,"  said  Mr.  Har 
rison  in  the  article  from  which  an  extract  has 
already  been  made.  "Several  hundred  names 
were  presented,  and  I  laid  them  aside  and 
sought  out  Mr.  Roosevelt.  He  seemed  to 
have  the  combined  elements  of  a  politician  and 
a  business  man — qualities  that  are  much 
needed  in  men  who  aspire  to  public  office.  It 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  219 

was  with  reluctance  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  took 
the  position ;  but  as  soon  as  he  entered  the 
Commission  he  began  to  work  with  so  much  de 
termination  and  completeness  that  I  felt  I  had 
secured  the  right  man.  He  devoted  his 
energies  and  determined  aggressiveness  to  the 
work,  with  good  results.  In  the  six  years  of 
his  tenure  of  office,  the  civil  service  was  ex 
tended  from  controlling  twelve  thousand  until 
forty  thousand  public  servants  were  made  sub 
ject  to  its  provisions." 

The  earnestness  with  which  Mr.  Roosevelt 
worked  in  those  years  has  been  described 
by  Mr.  John  Fletcher  Lacey,  who  was  then, 
and  still  is,  representing  an  Iowa  district  in 
Congress.  A  few  days  after  Mr.  Lacey 
took  his  seat  in  the  Fifty-first  Congress  he 
met  the  late  Thomas  B.  Reed  in  one  of  the 
cloak-rooms  of  the  Capitol,  studying  a  map 
of  the  United  States.  Mr.  Lacey  good 
humouredly  asked  him  if  he  were  figuring  out 
the  size  of  his  majority  as  Speaker.  Accord 
ing  to  the  lowan,  Mr.  Reed  replied: 


220    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

"No.  A  young  constituent  of  mine  who  has 
just  failed  in  a  civil  service  examination 
claims  that  a  competitor  passed  safely  by  brib 
ing  the  examiners  to  give  him  a  list  of  the 
questions  in  advance.  I  didn't  believe  my 
young  friend,  and  have  sent  him  to  the  head 
quarters  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission  to 
tell  his  story  there.  While  awaiting  his  re 
turn  I  have  been  figuring  out  on  this  map  that 
if,  say,  Columbus,  Ohio,  represented  one  hun 
dred  per  cent,  in  a  civil  service  table  of  mark 
ings,  my  constituent  would  come  out  some 
where  about  Jamaica,  Long  Island." 

"I  was  amused,"  said  Mr.  Lacey,  "by  Reed's 
quaint  way  of  stating  his  belief  in  his  con 
stituent's  inability  to  pass  the  examination. 
While  we  were  discussing  the  subject  of  civil 
service  regulations  in  a  general  way  in  walked 
the  young  man  who  had  failed  and  gone 
to  unburden  his  conviction  to  the  Civil  Service 
Commission  that  a  rival  had  been  successful 
through  connivance  with  an  agent  of  the 
Commission." 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  221 

"Well,  what  happened  when  you  told  your 
story?"  Reed  asked. 

"Why,"  faltered  the  youth,  "a  very  em 
phatic  fellow  in  charge  there  whipped  out  one 
hundred  dollars  in  bills,  laid  them  across  his 
knee  and  exclaimed:  Til  pay  you  one  hun 
dred  dollars,  young  man,  if  you  can  prove  that 
a  single  syllable  of  what  you  say  of  corrup 
tion  is  true.'  That  is  all  the  satisfaction  I 
got." 

"And  that  is  all  you  deserve,"  Reed 
added. 

"Then  he  turned  to  me,"  said  Mr.  Lacey, 
"and  remarked,  'We've  got  an  American  of 
blood  and  iron — a  coming  man — on  the  Civil 
Service  Commission.  I  tell  you,  Lacey,  you 
want  to  watch  that  Civil  Service  Commis 
sioner,  for  he's  a  New  World  Bismarck  and 
Cromwell  combined.  He'll  be  President  some 
day.' 

"'What's  his  name?'  I  asked. 

"  'Theodore  Roosevelt,'  replied  Reed. 

"Of  course  I  had  heard  vaguely  of  Roosevelt, 


222    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

but  never  having  had  occasion  to  meet  him 
I  had  formed  no  definite  opinion  of  him. 
Reed's  characterisation  aroused  in  me  the 
greatest  curiosity  to  see  Roosevelt.  The  next 
day  I  called  and  introduced  myself,  and  took 
the  liberty  to  repeat  what  the  young  man  had 
brought  back  about  the  one  hundred  dollar 
guarantee  that  no  turpitude  on  the  part  of  the 
examiner  in  question  existed. 

"  4I  have  resolved  to  purify  the  civil  ser 
vice  system,'  was  Mr.  Roosevelt's  reply,  'and  to 
that  end  have  placed  in  charge  men  whom  I 
trust  with  my  whole  heart,  and  I  stand  ready, 
therefore,  to  pledge  my  fortune  and  my  hon 
our  to  the  sacredness  with  which  they  respect 
the  trust  I  repose  in  them.' ' 

Mr.  Roosevelt  was  willing  to  back  not  only 
the  integrity  of  his  subordinates  but  the  fair 
ness  of  his  examinations  as  well.  It  has  been 
the  favourite  charge  of  the  opponents  of  the 
merit  system  that  the  examinations  did  not 
test  the  ability  of  the  candidates  for  the  duties 
which  they  aspired  to  perform.  Mr.  Roosevelt 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  223 

had  to  meet  this  charge  once  before  a  commit 
tee,  and  he  frankly  admitted  that  some  of  the 
questions  asked  were  intended  only  to  discover 
something  about  the  general  intelligence  of  the 
candidates. 

"Not  long  ago,"  he  said,  "we  asked  who  Lin 
coln  was,  and  the  answers  that  we  got  were 
various.  We  were  told  that  he  was  a  Revo 
lutionary  general,  that  he  was  assassinated  by 
Thomas  Jefferson,  that  he  assassinated  Aaron 
Burr,  that  he  commanded  a  regiment  in  the 
French  and  Indian  War,  and  that  he  was  an 
Arctic  explorer." 

He  insisted,  however,  that  all  examinations 
should  be  practical,  so  far  as  possible.  When 
it  was  decided  to  put  the  government  inspec 
tors  along  the  Rio  Grande  in  the  classified 
service,  it  became  necessary  to  prepare  ques 
tions  for  the  examinations.  As  these  men  were 
to  prevent  outlaws  from  running  cattle  across 
the  border  into  Mexico,  it  was  important  that 
they  should  be  first-class  horsemen,  familiar 
with  handling  cattle,  and  that  they  should  also 


224,    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

be  acquainted  with  the  various  brands  of  cattle 
on  the  Texas  frontier  ranges.  In  short,  men 
of  experience  in  frontier  life  were  needed. 
Some  subordinates  drafted  a  lot  of  questions  in 
history,  rhetoric,  and  mathematics  for  the 
candidates  to  answer.  Mr.  Roosevelt  knew 
something  about  the  West  and  was  aware  that 
while  men  who  could  answer  these  questions 
might  make  good  inspectors,  the  men  who 
could  be  got  to  serve  as  inspectors  could 
not  answer  the  questions,  and  that  whether 
they  could  or  not  was  immaterial.  He  there 
upon  drew  up  a  new  examination  paper. 
The  only  test  of  scholarship  was  the  require 
ment  that  the  candidates  should  answer  the 
questions  in  their  own  language  and  in  their 
own  handwriting. 

The  men  were  asked,  among  other  things, 
to  "state  the  experience,  if  any,  you  have  had 
as  a  marksman  with  a  rifle  or  a  pistol ;  whether 
or  not  you  have  practised  shooting  at  a  target 
with  either  weapon,  or  at  game  or  other  mov 
ing  objects;  and  also  whether  you  have  prac- 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  225 

tised  shooting  on  horseback.  State  the  make 
of  the  rifle  or  revolver  you  use." 

This  was  intensely  practical  and  was  in 
tended  to  disclose  the  kind  of  information 
needed  in  guiding  the  selection  of  inspectors. 
A  second  question  was  similar  to  the  first: 
"State  fully  what  experience  you  have  had 
in  horsemanship ;  whether  or  not  you  can  ride 
unbroken  horses ;  if  not,  whether  you  would  be 
able,  unassisted,  to  rope,  bridle,  saddle,  mount, 
and  ride  an  ordinary  cow  pony  after  it  had 
been  turned  loose  for  six  months  ;  also,  whether 
you  can  ride  an  ordinary  cow  pony  on  the 
round-up,  both  in  circle  riding  and  in  cutting- 
out  work  around  the  herd." 

Another  question  was  framed  so  as  to  test 
the  applicants'  knowledge  of  the  different 
brands  of  cattle  in  the  cattle  country.  When 
Mr.  Roosevelt  submitted  the  paper  to  his  col 
leagues,  he  declared  that  to  be  a  successful 
government  inspector  and  shoot  lawless  Mexi 
cans  who  were  trying  to  run  the  cattle  over 
the  border,  it  was  not  necessary  for  a  man  to 


22G    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

discuss  the  nebular  hypothesis,  nor  to  have 
an  intimate  knowledge  of  the  name  and  num 
ber  of  inhabitants  of  the  capital  of  Zanzibar. 

Because  he  was  a  practical  civil  service  re 
former  and  did  not  "play  politics,"  he  was 
kept  in  office  by  President  Cleveland,  expe 
riencing  in  his  own  person  the  benefits  of  the 
merit  system.  After  he  had  been  in  the  com 
mission  six  years,  he  concluded  that  his  work 
there  was  finished.  The  merit  system  was  so 
firmly  established  that  no  one  dared  propose 
to  return  to  the  old  spoils  system  of  the  dis 
tribution  of  the  patronage  among  the  success 
ful  party  workers;  and  the  examinations  to 
test  the  fitness  of  the  applicants  had  been  made 
so  practical  that  no  capable  man  could  fail  to 
pass  them. 

Then  came  the  opportunity  to  struggle  with 
the  police  problem  in  New  York  City.  He 
resigned  his  Civil  Service  Commissionership 
and  accepted  the  presidency  of  the  Board  of 
Police  Commissioners  under  Mayor  Strong., 
He  applied  the  merit  system  to  promotions  and 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  227 

put  an  end  to  the  old  practice  of  advancing 
favourites  and  keeping  down  good  men  if 
they  did  not  have  influence  with  politicians. 
The  effect  of  this  on  the  force  was  wonderful. 
The  honest  men,  and  they  were  largely  in  the 
majority,  took  heart  and  went  about  their 
work  with  greater  confidence  in  the  righteous 
ness  of  things  than  they  had  ever  had  before. 
The  favourites  of  the  old  regime,  however, 
attacked  the  new  Commissioner,  and  talked 
about  the  demoralisation  among  the  people 
arising  from  the  enforcement  of  the  new  regu 
lations,  which  required  the  policemen  to  treat 
all  citizens  alike,  without  partiality  for  the 
liquor-sellers  or  gamblers.  There  was  de 
moralisation,  it  is  true,  but  it  was  chiefly  those 
who  had  been  buying  privileges  to  violate 
the  law  that  were  demoralised.  When  influen 
tial  citizens,  who  had  heard  the  protests  of  the 
vicious  against  the  enforcement  of  the  laws 
regulating  liquor-selling,  began  to  be  afraid 
lest  business  should  suffer,  and  went  to  him 
and  suggested  that  it  was  not  wise  to  bring 


22S    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

about  this  new  order  of  things,  his  answer 
was  uniformly  the  same: 

"I  am  placed  here  to  enforce  the  law  as  I 
find  it.  I  shall  enforce  it.  If  you  don't  like 
the  law,  repeal  it." 

This  was  a  practical  application  of  General 
Grant's  dictum  that  the  best  way  to  secure  the 
repeal  of  an  improper  law  is  to  enforce  it. 
But  the  people  of  New  York  have  not  yet  been 
able  to  secure  the  repeal  of  the  statutes  which 
the  new  Police  Commissioner  insisted  should  be 
obeyed.  New  statutes  have  been  passed  and 
new  conditions  created,  but  the  situation  is 
practically  unchanged.  In  his  conversation 
with  Mr.  Eggleston  in  the  spring  of  1902  the 
subject  was  referred  to,  and  Mr.  Eggleston 
told  the  President  that  he  was  the  author  of 
the  situation  which  then  existed. 

"How  is  that?"  Mr.  Roosevelt  asked. 

"Why,  it  was  you  who  first  demonstrated  the 
fact  that  it  is  possible  for  an  honest  police  ad 
ministration  to  compel,  the  police  to  honest 
ways,"  Mr.  Eggleston  replied.  "You  thus 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  229 

created  a  popular  demand  for  honest  police 
administration  which  will  not  down  at  any 
man's  behest." 

Then  Mr.  Eggleston,  at  his  request,  briefly 
described  the  conditions,  and  after  some  mo 
ments'  thought  Mr.  Roosevelt  said : 

"The  difficulty  seems  to  be  inherent  in  the 
conditions.  If  a  reform  administration  hon 
estly  endeavours  to  carry  out  reform,  it  makes 
an  end  of  itself  at  the  end  of  its  term  and  in 
sures  the  return  of  Tammany  to  power.  If  a 
reform  administration  fails  or  falters  in  carry 
ing  out  the  pledges  of  reform  on  which  it  was 
elected,  it  utterly  loses  the  confidence  and  sup 
port  of  the  reform  forces,  and  that  again 
means  a  triumph  for  Tammany  at  the  next 
election." 

"What,  then,  is  to  be  done?"  asked  Mr.  Eg 
gleston. 

"Enforce  the  law  and  take  the  conse 
quences,"  he  quickly  answered.  "The  police 
force  is  composed  mainly  of  good  men, 
who  have  no  love  for  crookedness.  They 


230    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

need  only  know  that  an  honest  discharge 
of  duty  is  required  of  them  in  order  to 
insure  conduct  of  that  character  on  their 
part." 

As  Police  Commissioner  Mr.  Roosevelt  not 
only  strove  to  enforce  the  law  against  the 
powerful  liquor-sellers,  and  against  the  com 
bination  of  powerful  politicians  which  sup 
ported  them,  but  he  was  equally  determined 
that  there  should  be  no  violation  of  the  law  in 
the  name  of  liberty  during  labour  strikes. 
The  labouring  men  are  under  as  great  obli 
gations  to  refrain  from  violence  as  the  saloon 
keepers  are  to  refrain  from  selling  liquor 
during  the  prohibited  hours.  He  told  them  so, 
too,  when  they  struck  and  there  were  pros 
pects  of  rioting  in  the  streets.  He  went  before 
a  company  of  the  men  and  their  leaders  and 
said  to  them : 

"Gentlemen,  I  have  come  to  get  your  point 
of  view  and  see  if  we  cannot  agree  to  help 
each  other  out.  But  we  want  to  make  it  clear 
to  ourselves  at  the  start  that  the  greatest  dam- 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  231 

age  any  man  can  do  to  his  cause  is  to  counsel 
violence." 

Then,  with  an  emphasis  the  significance  of 
which  there  was  no  mistaking,  he  continued : 

"Order  must  be  maintained ;  and  make  no 
mistake,  I  will  maintain  it." 

The  labour  men  had  thought  at  first  that 
they  were  to  meet  an  ordinary  politician  who 
proposed  to  "conciliate  the  labour  vote,"  but 
before  he  was  through  with  them  they  dis 
covered  that  his  method  of  conciliation  was 
unusual.  They  respected  him  for  his  stand, 
however,  for  the  great  maj  ority  of  the  labour 
ing  men  are  honest  and  fair-minded. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  went  from  the  Police  Board  to 
the  Navy  Department  and  from  the  Navy  De 
partment  to  the  volunteer  army  in  Cuba. 
After  his  return  from  Cuba  the  politicians  de 
sired  to  profit  by  his  popularity,  both  the 
politicians  in  his  regular  party  organisation 
and  the  independents  as  well.  The  latter 
sought  to  persuade  him  to  accept  a  nomination 
for  the  Governorship  of  New  York  from  them 


232     THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

before  the  regular  organisation  had  a  chance 
to  nominate  him.  They  did  not  know  the 
man.  He  had  not  been  in  the  habit  of  doing 
things  that  way.  He  did  not  propose  to  be  the 
candidate  of  merely  a  few  people  who  were 
unable  to  work  in  harmony  with  a  majority 
of  their  party.  Such  a  candidacy  might  be 
amusing,  but  it  would  lead  nowhere.  With 
consummate  skill  he  prevented  the  indepen 
dents  from  complicating  the  situation,  and 
then  accepted  the  regular  Republican  nomina 
tion  when  it  came  to  him.  And  he  was  elected 
when  it  was  believed  that  no  other  candidate 
could  have  saved  his  party  from  defeat. 

He  not  only  prevented  the  reformers,  as  they 
pleased  to  call  themselves,  from  defeating  their 
own  purposes  in  the  campaign  for  his  election, 
but  when  he  took  his  seat  in  the  State  Capitol 
in  Albany,  he  prevented  the  regular  politicians 
from  using  their  accustomed  tactics.  The 
head  of  one  of  the  State  departments  seemed 
to  think  that  the  department  was  maintained 
to  further  his  own  political  ambitions,  and  he 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  233 

used  it  for  those  ends.  Mr.  Roosevelt  did  not 
think  government  was  carried  on  for  such  pur 
poses  and  he  sent  for  the  man.  When  the 
official  reached  the  executive  chamber,  they 
say  the  Governor  read  him  a  lecture  about  the 
duty  of  public  officials  which  he  will  long 
remember,  and  ended  it  by  shaking  his  finger 
in  the  man's  face  and  snapping  out  at  him : 

"Now,  if  you  don't  stop  playing  politics  in 
your  office  I  will  pretty  soon  know  the  reason 
why." 

The  man  was  surprised,  to  say  the  least ;  but 
he  paid  more  attention  to  his  public  duties 
thereafter. 

The  political  effect  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  actions, 
if  he  believed  that  he  was  acting  for  the  gen 
eral  good,  did  not  seem  to  trouble  him  much. 
He  seconded  the  efforts  of  the  Democratic  Con 
troller  of  New  York  City  to  secure  the  passage 
of  bills  to  prevent  the  waste  of  the  city's  funds. 
The  Corporation  Counsel  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  confessing  judgment  in  suits  against 
the  city  when  he  thought  best,  without  con- 


234    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

suiting  the  financial  officers  or  any  one  else. 
It  was  as  if  a  lawyer  should  confess  judgment 
without  first  consulting  his  client. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  thought  that  this  was  not 
right.  He  also  thought  that  there  should  be 
some  official  who  should  audit  bills  for  sup 
plies  purchased  for  the  various  city  depart 
ments.  Mr.  Bird  S.  Coler,  the  Controller,  as 
the  financial  head  of  the  city,  sought  to  have 
the  law  so  changed  that  his  office  might  audit 
the  supply  bills,  and  so  that  the  law  officer  of 
the  city  should  be  compelled  to  consult  him 
before  admitting  in  court  that  the  city  had  no 
defence  against  any  suit  brought  to  collect 
damages  for  injuries  sustained  or  pay  for 
goods  furnished. 

When  one  of  the  Republican  leaders  heard 
that  the  Governor  was  working  with  the  Con 
troller  to  secure  the  passage  of  the  necessary 
bills,  he  protested,  saying: 

"Governor,  you  are  building  up  a  powerful 
rival  to  you  next  fall,"  referring  to  Mr. 
Coler's  desire  for  the  Democratic  nomination 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  235 

for  the  Governorship.  Mr.  Coler  was  not 
nominated  till  two  years  later,  as  it  turned 
out. 

"Maybe  so,"  replied  Mr.  Roosevelt,  "but  he 
is  right  and  he  is  going  to  have  those  bills 
if  I  can  get  them  through  the  Legislature 
for  him." 

On  another  occasion  other  party  leaders  pro 
tested  against  his  advocacy  of  the  measure 
providing  for  the  appointment  of  a  commis 
sion  of  expert  engineers  to  consider  the  best 
method  of  enlarging  the  Erie  Canal. 

"It  is  suicide  to  do  it,"  they  urged,  "for  it 
will  lose  votes  for  you  among  the  farmers  and 
in  the  districts  that  elected  you.  It  is  bad 
politics." 

Mr.  Roosevelt  appreciated  the  force  of  the 
argument,  but  he  did  not  yield.  He  simply 
shook  his  head  and  said : 

"You  are  right,  but  this  is  a  case  where  the 
few  must  give  way  for  the  benefit  of  the  many. 
I  realise  that  it  seems  unjust  to  the  farmers 
to  be  taxed  for  improvements  that  will  help 


236    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

bring  produce  from  the  West  to  compete 
with  them,  but  the  whole  State  must  be  con 
sidered,  and  that  canal  proposition  is  in 
line  with  commercial  progress.  It  must  go 
through." 

When  the  Legislature  hesitated  in  its  sup 
port  of  the  measures  he  favoured,  or  in  sup 
port  of  his  desire  to  secure  the  appointment  of 
officers  who  had  the  confidence  of  the  people, 
in  distinction  from  professional  politicians, 
he  was  urged  to  use  the  methods  which  other 
Governors  had  found  effective,  that  is,  to  call 
the  recalcitrant  Senators  and  Assemblymen  to 
the  executive  chamber  and  threaten  to  veto 
the  bills  in  which  they  were  interested  unless 
they  supported  him.  They  knew  the  power 
that  a  Governor  could  exercise  if  he  used  such 
a  weapon.  Indeed,  they  were  aware  that  a 
Democratic  leader  who  had  been  Governor 
once  exclaimed  in  indignation,  when  he  heard 
of  the  rebellion  of  the  Legislature  against  an 
other  Democratic  Governor: 

"Why  doesn't  he  threaten  to  veto  their  bills 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  237 

if  they  don't  come  to  time?  That  is  what  the 
veto  power  is  for." 

Mr.  Roosevelt  refused  to  be  persuaded. 
"Their  bills  belong  to  their  constituents  and 
to  the  public,"  he  said,  "and  I  have  no  right 
to  delay,  much  less  to  defeat,  them.  As  I  can 
not  do  this,  it  is  unfair  to  threaten  them.  I 
must  win  on  the  merits  of  the  case  or  not  at 
all.  But  I  will  win." 

When  he  insisted  on  the  passage  of  a  law 
taxing  the  franchises  of  public  utility  cor 
porations,  after  classifying  them  as  real 
estate,  the  politicians  again  told  him  that  he 
was  destroying  his  political  future.  He  in 
sisted  that  he  was  right  and  that  the  bill  should 
be  passed.  The  Legislature  agreed  to  it  in 
the  last  days  of  the  session,  but  the  bill  was 
in  imperfect  shape.  The  Governor  at  once 
called  the  Legislature  together  again  in  spe 
cial  session  and  persuaded  it  to  amend  the 
measure  in  accordance  with  his  wishes. 

This  was  in  the  spring  of  1900,  when  the  de 
mand  for  his  nomination  for  the  Vice-Presi 
dency  was  just  beginning. 


XI 
THE  POLITICAL  MAN   (concluded) 

THE  New  York  leaders,  or  some  of  them,  were 
certain  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  could  not  be  elected 
to  the  Governorship  again  if  he  were  renomi- 
nated.  They  said  that  the  large  f  ranchise-en- 
joying  corporations  from  which  they  were 
accustomed  to  receive  large  campaign  con 
tributions  would  not  give  a  cent  if  he  were  the 
candidate. 

This  was  the  attitude  of  the  politicians  of 
his  own  State  when  the  demand  for  his  nomina 
tion  to  the  Vice-Presidency  began  to  be  heard 
in  the  West.  These  politicians  were  willing 
and  anxious  to  get  the  complications  of  his 
candidacy  out  of  the  State  campaign.  Mr. 
Roosevelt  himself  did  not  wish  to  go  to 
Washington,  but  was  anxious  for  another  term 
as  Governor  to  complete  the  work  which  he  had 
begun.  The  Vice-Presidency  had  no  attrac- 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  239 

tions  for  him.  In  April,  1900,  he  wrote  from 
Albany  to  a  friend :  "Here  I  am  occupied  in 
trying  not  to  be  made  Vice-Presidential  candi 
date.  I  prefer  to  try  for  the  Governorship 
again ;  whether  I  will  be  beaten  or  not  I  can 
not  tell ;  I  suppose  I  should  certainly  be  beaten 
if  it  were  not  a  Presidential  year ;  but  this  year 
there  is  a  good  chance  of  carrying  the  Gover 
norship,  too ;  whether  it  is  more  than  an  even 
chance  I  should  be  afraid  to  say." 

In  conversation  with  his  acquaintances  he 
made  similar  remarks  about  his  unwillingness 
to  become  Vice-President.  To  one  such  he 
said: 

"I  don't  want  to  sit  up  there  in  the  Senate 
chamber  for  four  years  and  say,  'All  in  favour 
of  the  motion  signify  it  by  saying  "Aye," 
all  opposed,  "No,"  the  motion  is  carried  or 
lost,'  as  the  case  may  be ;  'The  Senator  from 
such  and  such  a  State  has  the  floor ;'  and  things 
like  that.  Besides,  I'd  have  to  keep  quiet  up 
there  on  the  platform  when  that  man  [nam 
ing  a  conspicuous  anti-imperialist  Senator] 


240     THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

got  up  in  his  place  and  talked  his  confounded 
treason,  when  I  should  feel  like  going  down  on 
the  floor  and  knocking  his  blamed  head  off !" 

He  was  not  the  candidate  of  the  delegates 
from  New  York  to  the  National  Convention. 
They  were  inclined  to  support  Timothy  L. 
Woodruff,  the  Lieutcn ant-Governor  of  the 
State,  rather  than  Theodore  Roosevelt,  the 
Governor.  When  asked  a  few  years  later  by 
Mr.  James  B.  Morrow  what  was  the  reason 
of  his  failure  to  secure  the  nomination,  Mr. 
Woodruff  replied : 

"Theodore  Roosevelt's  immense  popularity 
in  the  West  forced  his  candidacy  on  the  dele 
gates,  notwithstanding  his  wish  and  determina 
tion  to  stay  in  New  York  and  run  for  the 
Governorship  again.  Back  from  Cuba  but  a 
short  time,  he  was  a  striking  and  romantic  per 
sonality.  I  don't  say  I  could  have  been  nomi 
nated,  although  seventy-two  delegates  from 
New  York  met  in  Philadelphia  and  indorsed 
my  candidac3\  It  is  true,  however,  that  New 
York's  demand  for  a  place  on  the  national 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  241 

ticket  is  usually  respected.  I  was  in  Wash 
ington  several  months  before  the  convention 
met.  Mr.  Hanna  [the  chairman  of  the  Re 
publican  National  Committee]  sent  for  me. 
When  I  got  to  his  room  he  sat  down  and  put 
his  knees  against  mine. 

"  'Timothy,'  he  said,  'I  hear  that  you  will  be 
a  candidate  for  Vice-President.' 

"I  told  him  my  friends  had  suggested  it,  but 
that  my  own  mind  was  open  on  the  subject. 

"  'But  you  are  too  young,'  he  argued. 

"  'So  far  as  that  goes,'  I  replied,  'I  am  three 
months  and  twenty-three  days  older  than 
Theodore  Roosevelt,  and  my  son  is  a  junior  at 
Yale.' 

"  'Well,'  he  answered,  winking  his  right  eye, 
'you  look  too  young.'  ' 

The  demand  for  Mr.  Roosevelt,  as  Mr. 
Woodruff  said,  was  so  strong  that  he  could  not 
resist  it.  Many  of  his  friends,  even  so  late 
as  the  day  of  his  nomination  by  the  Phila 
delphia  convention,  advised  him  to  refuse  to 
allow  his  name  to  be  presented.  They  told  him 


242    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

that  if  he  accepted  he  would  be  shelved  for 
four  years  and  his  political  career  would  be 
ended.  Indeed,  they  believed  that  a  plot  had 
been  laid  by  his  enemies  to  bury  him  in  the 
Vice-Presidency,  and  three  or  four  years  later 
some  of  these  political  enemies  confessed  that 
this  had  been  their  purpose.  He  was  inclined 
to  believe  that  the  advice  of  his  friends  was 
good;  but  he  finally  yielded  to  the  pressure 
brought  to  bear  upon  him  and,  much  against 
his  will,  allowed  himself  to  be  nominated. 
Then  he  made  what  the  newspapers  call  a 
"whirlwind"  canvass  of  the  country,  and  was 
elected.  He  went  to  Washington  and  took 
the  oath  of  office  in  the  Senate  chamber,  and 
assumed  the  duties  of  presiding  officer  of  the 
smaller  branch  of  Congress. 

On  his  first  day  in  office  there  occurred  an 
amusing  illustration  of  his  habit  of  doing 
what  he  thinks  is  expected  of  him,  even  in  an 
unfamiliar  situation.  President  McKinley 
and  the  Senators  and  other  distinguished 
persons  left  the  Senate  chamber  for  the  East 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  243 

front  of  the  Capitol,  where  the  oath  was  to 
be  administered  to  the  President  and  where  he 
was  to  make  his  inaugural  address.  No  Sena 
tor  had  thought  to  move  an  adjournment. 
Mr.  Roosevelt,  accordingly,  concluded  that  he 
must  not  desert  his  post,  and  he  knew  that  it 
was  not  consistent  with  the  dignity  of  the 
Senate  for  him  to  declare  it  adjourned,  on  his 
own  initiative.  For  a  long  time  he  remained 
alone  on  the  Senate  rostrum.  Not  another 
living  creature  was  in  the  room.  He  was  put 
away  on  a  shelf  and  left  there,  indeed.  Then 
Senator  Heitfeld,  of  Idaho,  went  into  the 
chamber  on  his  way  to  the  Democratic  cloak 
room  to  get  his  rain-coat,  which  he  had  left 
behind.  He  took  in  the  situation  at  once,  and 
with  great  solemnity  addressed  the  Chair. 
What  happened  might  have  appeared  in  the 
Congressional  Record  something  like  this : 

MR.  HEITFELD. — Mr.  President. 

THE  VICE-PRESIDENT. — The  Senator  from 
Idaho. 

MR.  HEITFELD. — I  move  that  the  Senate 
do  now  adjourn  till  12  o'clock  noon  to-morrow. 


21-4    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

THE  VICE-PRESIDENT  (looking  vastly  re 
lieved). — The  Senator  from  Idaho  moves  that 
the  Senate  do  now  adjourn  until  IS  o'clock 
noon  to-morrow.  Is  there  objection?  The 
Chair  hears  none,  and  the  Senate  stands  ad 
journed  until  the  hour  named. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  emphasised  this  announcement 
with  a  hearty  thump  of  the  gavel  and  rushed 
down  from  the  rostrum  and  thanked  the  Sena 
tor  for  coming  to  his  rescue.  When  he  be 
came  President,  Senator  Heitfeld  was  one  of 
his  first  callers,  and  Mr.  Roosevelt  asked,  as 
he  grasped  his  hand : 

"Do  you  remember  when  you  and  I  were  the 
whole  Senate?  I  want  to  thank  you  again  for 
what  you  did  that  day.  If  it  hadn't  been  that 
you  forgot  your  rain-coat  and  had  to  return 
for  it  there  is  no  telling  how  long  I  should  have 
had  to  preside  over  an  empty  Senate." 

Another  instance  of  the  effect  of  the  cere 
monious  side  of  office  upon  him  will  go  as 
well  here  as  anywhere.  It  was  on  the  evening 
of  the  first  diplomatic  reception  after  he  be 
came  President.  He  was  standing  in  his  place, 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  245 

flanked  by  the  suitable  supporters,  and  the 
brilliant  line  of  guests  was  passing  before  him. 
There  were  ambassadors  and  ministers  pleni 
potentiary,  attaches,  naval  and  military,  sec 
retaries  of  legation,  gorgeous  uniforms,  and 
all  the  trappings  of  an  elaborate  State  func 
tion.  In  the  line,  after  the  official  guests,  was 
a  lady,  an  intimate  friend  of  the  President. 
She  expected  that  he  would  take  especial 
notice  of  her ;  but  he  only  bowed  formally  over 
her  hand  as  he  did  over  the  hands  of  the  others. 

Later  in  the  evening  Mr.  Roosevelt  ran  across 
her  in  the  reception-room  and  greeted  her  with 
great  friendliness. 

"Why  didn't  you  come  in  time  for  the  recep 
tion?"  he  asked. 

"I  did,"  she  replied,  "and  you  didn't  even 
recognise  me." 

"Impossible!"  exclaimed  the  President. 
Then  he  whispered,  "To  tell  the  truth,  Mrs. 

,  I  was  so  fearful  I  would  not  do  the  right 

thing  I  could  not  think  of  anybody  but  my 
self!" 


246    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

To  return  to  the  political  side  of  his  career. 
He  had  begun  to  adjust  himself  to  four  years 
of  life  in  Washington  as  presiding  officer  of 
the  Senate.  As  already  noted,  he  considered 
reading  law  that  he  might  have  a  lucrative 
profession  when  his  term  expired,  a  profes 
sion  whose  returns  were  more  certain  than 
those  of  literature. 

Then  came  the  assassination  of  President 
McKinley. 

There  are  few  more  trying  positions  that  a 
man  can  occupy  than  that  into  which  an 
American  Vice-President  is  forced  by  the  sud 
den  death  of  the  President.  As  Vice-President 
he  has  been  elected  to  an  office  with  little  power. 
Its  influence  over  legislation  is  so  slight  that 
it  is  difficult  to  discover  it,  and  its  demands 
on  the  time  of  its  occupant  are  usually  limited 
to  the  hours  when  he  is  in  the  chair. 

To  be  suddenly  lifted  from  this  inconspicu 
ous  place  into  the  most  powerful  executive 
office  in  the  world,  at  the  head  of  one  of  the 
greatest  nations,  is  enough  to  try  the  stuff  in 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  247 

any  man.  They  say  that  when  Vice-President 
Arthur  heard  of  the  assault  upon  President 
Garfield  he  spoke  not  a  word.  He  sat  down 
and  stared  into  vacancy  for  fifteen  minutes, 
and  when  he  rose  he  had  the  manner  of  a  man 
who  was  staggering  under  a  great  burden  that 
had  just  been  put  upon  his  shoulders. 

The  first  effect  of  the  news  of  the  assault 
upon  President  McKinley  was  to  overpower 
Mr.  Roosevelt  with  grief  for  the  injury  to  a 
friend. 

"He  must  live.  He  must  live,"  was  his 
thought  and  his  word. 

He  received  every  favourable  report  with 
delight,  as  it  indicated  the  fulfilment  of  his 
wishes,  and  when  it  was  announced  that  the 
danger  was  over,  he  went  back  from  Buffalo 
to  the  Adirondacks  to  resume  his  interrupted 
vacation.  When  the  President  died,  and  he 
was  summoned  to  Buffalo  again,  he  had  it  out 
with  himself  in  his  ride  alone  across  the  State, 
and  was  ready  to  announce  that  as  the  country 
had  elected  William  McKinley  to  the  Presi- 


248    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

dency,  it  desired  the  policies  of  McKinley  to 
be  pursued,  and  he  would  respect  that  desire. 
So  he  asked  the  McKinley  Cabinet  to  remain 
with  him  to  assist  him  in  making  his  adminis 
tration  as  near  as  possible  as  the  dead  Presi 
dent  would  have  made  it. 

Such  respect  for  the  popular  will  in  such  cir 
cumstances  is  rare,  indeed,  and  when  the  final 
estimate  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  career  is  written 
this  revelation  of  the  man's  loyalty  to  the 
ideals  of  popular  government  will  receive  due 
weight. 

Neither  will  the  other  significant  fact  be 
lost  sight  of  that  on  his  first  Sunday  in  Wash- 
ton  as  President  he  went  quietly  to  the  little 
Reformed  Church  which  he  had  been  accus 
tomed  to  attend.  Here  he  joined  in  the 
prayers  offered,  and  sang  with  the  congrega 
tion,  and  nodded  approvingly  as  the  preacher 
expressed  sentiments  with  which  he  agreed. 

He  entered  upon  his  new  duties  with  char 
acteristic  vigour.  While  trying  to  carry  out 
the  McKinley  policies,  he  had  to  do  so  in  the 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  249 

Roosevelt  way.  That  way  is  different  from 
the  usual  manner  of  Presidents,  as  appeared 
when  he  began  to  meet  people  in  the  White 
House.  A  man  who  was  present  has  described 
how  he  received  the  people  who  went  to  see 
him  one  day  in  1901,  when  he  had  been 
President  about  two  months.  To  read  what 
this  man  said  is  almost  as  good  as  being 
there  in  person.  Every  phase  of  humanity 
was  gathered  in  the  waiting-room,  when  the 
President  bounded  into  the  room  unannounced, 
and  seized  the  hand  of  the  first  person  he 
saw. 

"Glad  to  see  you,"  he  exclaimed  as  he 
grasped  the  hand  of  the  visitor.  There  is 
an  emphasis  on  the  "you"  which  startles  the 
visitor  with  its  ring  of  candour.  But  scarcely 
has  he  recovered  from  his  astonishment  suf 
ficiently  to  begin  his  speech,  before  the  Presi 
dent  has  darted  half-way  across  the  circle, 
leaving  outstretched  hands  tingling  with  the 
rush  of  blood  caused  by  the  firm  Presidential 
grasp,  and  startled  ears  trying  to  realise  that 


2oO    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

into  them  has  been  hurled  the  assurance  that 
he  was  glad  to  see  them. 

When  the  President  was  not  "Glad  to  see 
you"  he  was  "Delighted  to  see  you,"  our  in 
formant  assures  us.  Statesmen,  office-seekers, 
giggling  brides,  tuft-hunters,  notoriety-seek 
ers,  stately  ladies,  capitalists,  labourers,  Dem 
ocrats,  Republicans,  Populists,  all  get  the 
same  greeting,  the  same  nervous  but  firm  hand 
shake,  the  same  glitter  of  the  eye.  And  then 
darts  away  this  bundle  of  nerves  and  steel. 

To  the  visiting  delegations  who  appeared 
with  a  spokesman  and  with  the  motive  of  sug 
gesting  something  of  value  either  to  the  nation 
or  to  themselves,  these  early  methods  of  the 
President  were  perhaps  displayed  to  the  best 
advantage.  A  party  of  men  from  Montana 
were  present  on  the  day  in  question,  and  they 
desired  to  impress  on  the  President  the  neces 
sity  and  the  value  of  their  irrigation  plans. 

"We  would  like  to  have  a  word  with  you 
about  irrigation,  Mr.  President,"  the  spokes 
man  began.  He  was  immediately  cut  short  by 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  251 

the  President  saying  in  a  tone  that  was  heard 
all  over  the  room  and  out  in  the  hallway : 

"Yes,  oh  yes.  You  favour  irrigation,  do  you? 
Well,  so  do  I.  I  have  urged  it  in  my  message. 
Here,  Cortelyou,  get  me  a  printed  copy  of 
my  message  so  I  can  read  to  these  gentlemen 
what  I  am  going  to  say  to  Congress  on  the 
subject  of  irrigation." 

The  printed  copy  was  produced  at  once  and 
the  President  read  so  everybody  within  earshot 
could  hear  what  he  intended  to  ask  Congress 
to  do  on  the  irrigation  question. 

A  tall  man,  moving  about  with  a  dignified 
stride,  next  caught  the  President's  eye,  as  the 
Montana  delegation  backed  away.  What  the 
man  of  mystery  and  dignity  said  could  not  be 
heard,  but  what  the  President  said  could  be. 

"Yes,  yes,  I  know  you  and  I  am  delighted  to 
see  you,"  said  Mr.  Roosevelt,  "but  you  must 
put  your  application  in  writing.  Yes.  Put  it 
in  writing  and  send  it  to  me  with  your  indorse 
ments  and  I'll  see  what  can  be  done." 

The    man    leaned    forward    and    whispered 


252    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

again,  this  time  his  face  crimson  with  blushes 
of  embarrassment. 

"Oh,  I  know  all  about  that.  Yes,  certainly 
I  do.  And  I  have  no  doubt  you  would  fill  the 
bill.  But  I  do  not  know  whether  or  not  there 
is  a  vacancy.  Don't  you  know  that  it  is  im 
possible  for  me  to  keep  all  these  things  in  my 
head  ?  Write  out  your  application.  Write  it 
out,  and  then  send  it  to  me  with  your  indorse 
ments.  Come  to  see  me  again,  soon.  Good 
bye." 

"Ah,  there's  Mr.  White!"  exclaimed  the 
President  as  he  espied  a  scholarly-looking  man 
with  short  grey  beard  sitting  modestly  and 
patiently  back  in  a  corner  away  from  the 
jostling  crowd.  "Go  into  my  office,  Mr.  White. 
I  shall  be  there  in  two  or  three  minutes."  Mr. 
White,  who  is  a  New  York  editor,  did  as  he  was 
directed. 

"Glad  to  see  you,"  "Delighted  to  see  you," 
"Glad  to  see  you,"  "Delighted,"  then  rang  out 
in  greeting  as  the  President  whirled  around 
through  the  room.  The  people  grabbed  at  his 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  253 

hand  as  it  was  extended,  or  rather,  shot  out 
at  them. 

"Hello,  Senator  Proctor,  how  are  you?  I 
want  to  see  you  in  my  office  directly.  Please 
wait  a  little  while  until  I  am  through  with  Mr. 
White,  then  come  in.  You  know  I  am  depend 
ing  on  you  as  one  of  my  main  props." 

The  rugged  Vermont  statesman  said  he 
would  wait,  and  on  the  President  dashed  to  an 
other  bunch  of  visitors.  In  three  or  four  min 
utes  he  had  squeezed  twenty  or  more  hands, 
and  the  second  crowd  of  the  day  was  disposed 
of.  With  the  next  crowd  there  came  strid 
ing  in  a  handsome  rosy-cheeked  lad,  gaily 
dressed  in  a  military  uniform  that  was 
decorated  with  all  the  distinguishing  colours 
of  the  various  arms  of  the  Army  and  insignia 
of  the  various  grades  of  the  Navy.  Into  a 
large  upholstered  chair  this  youth  plumped 
his  roly-poly  form  near  the  door  leading  to 
the  President's  office.  The  crowd  thickened  so 
fast  that  the  doorkeeper  refused  to  let  any 
more  people  in  till  the  congestion  in  the  room 


254    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

was  relieved.  Again  the  President  rushed  into 
the  room,  and  bumped  into  the  youth  in  the 
chair. 

"Ah,  so  this  is  Master ,  is  it  ?"  Mr.  Roose 
velt  inquired  as  he  seized  the  right  hand  of  the 
lad.  "Well,  I  received  your  telegram  from 
Baltimore  last  night  telling  me  that  you  would 
call  on  me  to-day.  I  am  delighted  to  see  you, 
sir — delighted  to  see  you." 

"Mr.  President,"  the  boy  began,  in  a  deter 
mined  effort  to  deliver  his  carefully  prepared 
speech,  "I  am  travelling — 

"Yes,  yes,"  interrupted  the  President.  "I 
know  you  are,  and  I  am  glad  to  see  you.  Mr. 
Cortelyou  will  look  after  you." 

As  the  President  was  surrounded  by  the  eddy 
ing  crowd  the  brave  little  boy,  twelve  years 
old,  continued  his  speech  thus : 

"I  am  travelling  salesman  for  a  typewriter. 
My  father  was  a  miner  in  Pennsylvania,  and 
when  he  died  a  few  months  ago  he  left  my 
mother  a  large  family  of  children,  but  no  prop 
erty.  I  am  making  the  living  for  the  family, 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  255 

and  I  have  brought  you  as  a  Thanksgiving 
present  one  of  my  typewriters.  Accept  it,  Mr. 
President,  and  make  my  mother's  heart  glad. 
All  our  family  think  you  are  the  greatest  man 
that  was  ever  President  of  the  United  States." 

There  was  a  kind,  gentle,  fatherly  tone  in  the 
President's  voice  as  he  held  both  the  hands  of 
this  courageous  American  fighting  his  own 
way,  and  spoke  some  encouraging  words. 

"God  bless  you,"  said  the  President  a  little 
while  later,  as  he  encountered  the  lad  in  an 
other  part  of  the  room,  and  a  merry-faced  old 
lady  who  was  waiting  her  turn  to  greet  the 
President  wiped  the  tears  from  her  eyes  that 
came  unbidden  as  she  heard  the  benediction. 

It  was  now  noon,  and  the  reception-room  had 
been  filled  and  emptied  five  times.  For  an  hour 
and  a  half  longer  the  crowd  continued  to  pour 
in.  A  pompous  man  accompanied  by  a  party 
of  women  grabbed  the  President's  hand  and 
began  to  say,  "Mr.  President,  we  could  not 
leave  Washington  without  calling  to  pay  our 
respects.  I  sat  on  the  stand  when  you  spoke  in 


256    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

my  town  in  Colorado  last  year,  and  I  told  the 
ladies  you  would  remember  me." 

"Certainly,  certainly,"  assented  Mr.  Roose 
velt,  and  before  the  women  finished  their 
speeches  of  congratulation  he  landed  in  an 
opposite  corner  of  the  room,  where  a  man 
wished  to  impress  on  him  the  desirability  of 
"speaking  out  in  your  message  in  no  uncertain 
tone  on  the  currency  question." 

"I  believe  my  message  will  please  you  on  that 
point,"  Mr.  Roosevelt  assured  the  man. 
"Here,  I'll  read  you  what  I  have  written  on 
that  topic." 

And  the  President,  in  his  usual  way,  read 
that  part  of  his  message,  to  the  great  delight 
of  his  listener,  who  signified  his  agreement  by 
vigorous  nods  of  his  head. 

This  was  at  the  beginning  of  his  adminis 
tration.  It  was  pretty  generally  admitted 
then  that  he  had  not  the  composure  and  dig 
nity  which  characterises  the  manner  of  older 
men  who  have  risen  to  high  place  more  gradu 
ally.  But  as  the  months  passed  he  acquired 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  257 

greater  poise,  he  spoke  less  loudly  in  greeting 
his  callers,  and  showed  more  appreciation  of 
the  sensibilities  of  those  asking  favours.  The 
superficial  evidences  of  nervousness  disap 
peared.  His  great  responsibilities  sobered 
him  and  he  began  to  impress  his  callers  as  a 
man  of  firm  will  and  steady  mental  poise.  Al 
though  there  has  been  a  change  in  his  manner 
he  still  deals  frankly  and  insists  that  others 
shall  be  frank  with  him,  just  as  in  the  begin 
ning. 

This  insistence  on  frankness  has  brought  con 
fusion  to  more  than  one  man  who  has  neg 
lected  to  tell  him  the  whole  truth.  On  one  oc 
casion  he  rescinded  the  appointment  of  a 
United  States  Marshal  because  the  man  had 
misled  him  as  to  his  record.  The  man  had  the 
reputation  of  being  a  drunkard  and  broiler, 
and  Senator  Hoar  opposed  him.  When  the 
Senator  protested  the  President  told  him  that 
the  man  had  been  one  of  the  bravest  soldiers  in 
his  regiment,  and  that  he  had  reformed. 
Later  Senator  Hoar  learned  that  the  man  had 


258    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

served  a  term  in  prison  for  horse-stealing,  and 
went  to  the  White  House  to  make  further 
protest. 

"He  didn't  tell  me  that,"  said  the  President. 
"I'll  telegraph  him  about  it." 

When  the  reply  came  it  was  that  the  im 
prisonment  happened  fifteen  years  before  and 
the  man  said  he  thought  it  had  been  for 
gotten. 

Then  the  President  sent  word  to  him :  "If 
you  had  told  me  that  in  the  first  place  it  would 
have  been  all  right ;  but  you  lied  to  me  and 
that  settles  it." 

In  the  preparation  of  his  first  message  to 
Congress,  sections  of  which  we  have  seen  him 
reading  to  his  callers,  he  sought  the  assistance 
and  advice  of  the  men  who  were  familiar  with 
the  subjects  he  intended  to  discuss. 

"Before  he  finished  it,"  remarked  one  Sena 
tor,  "he  consulted  every  one  in  whose  judg 
ment  he  had  confidence.  He  even  did  me  the 
honour  to  summon  me  here  from  my  home  in 
the  West  for  consultation.  When  I  arrived 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  259 

I  found  him  so  busy  he  was  compelled  to  ask 
me  to  dictate  to  a  stenographer  my  views  on 
certain  questions  of  pressing  importance,  and 
send  them  to  him  in  that  shape." 

This  has  been  his  practice,  to  take  no  im 
portant  action  without  previous  consultation 
with  the  people  best  informed  on  the  matter 
involved.  Before  he  took  the  unprecedented 
course  of  ordering  an  investigation  into  the 
grievances  of  the  striking  coal-miners  in  1903, 
he  had  many  conferences  with  people  repre 
senting  both  sides  of  the  controversy.  His 
final  determination  to  recognise  the  Panama 
revolutionists  in  the  autumn  of  the  same  year 
was  not  reached  till  he  had  taken  the  advice 
of  the  men  who  understood  the  situation  on 
the  Isthmus.  But  when  he  did  act  he 
took  all  the  responsibility  himself,  and 
he  was  naturally  pleased  when  his  course 
was  approved  by  those  with  whom  he 
talked. 

Mr.  William  C.  Adamson,  of  Georgia,  was 
one  of  the  callers  at  the  White  House  on  the 


260    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

day  after  the  republic  of  Panama  was  recog 
nised  by  the  United  States. 

"Congressman,"  said  the  President,  shaking 
his  hand,  "I  am  always  glad  to  see  you,  but 
especially  so  at  this  time." 

"Mr.  President,"  replied  the  Congressman, 
"I  am  glad  to  meet  you  and  see  that  you 
are  well  and  buoyant.  I  called  thinking  I 
had  business,  but  find  that  it  is  not  ready 
to  present  to  you,  so  I  determined  to 
wait,  and  in  the  language  of  Br'er  Rab 
bit,  'pass  the  time  o'  day  wid  you,'  before 
leaving." 

"Speaking  of  Br'er  Rabbit,"  said  the  Presi 
dent,  "that  Jack  rabbit  on  the  Isthmus  jumped 
one  time  too  many  for  his  good." 

"I  imagine  the  surprise  and  consternation  of 
that  rabbit,"  Mr.  Adamson  rejoined,  "when, 
after  jumping  for  a  race  down  the  Isthmus, 
he  found  himself  confronted  by  a  President 
who  was  not  too  bow-legged  to  head  him  in  the 
lane." 

The   President    enjoyed     this    metaphorical 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  261 

compliment  so  much  that  he  repeated  it  to  a 
number  of  his  callers. 

After  he  has  taken  the  advice  of  various 
people,  it  seems  to  be  generally  agreed  that  he 
uses  his  own  judgment.  Elihu  Root,  then 
Secretary  of  War,  called  attention  to  the 
dominating  will  of  the  President  in  the  spring 
of  1903  at  a  dinner  in  his  honour.  Mr.  Root 
was  talking  about  the  Manchurian  ques 
tion  and  the  possible  effect  of  Russian  control 
of  the  territory  on  the  course  of  .the  United 
States  in  maintaining  its  rights  in  the  East. 

"We  must  never  forget,  gentlemen,"  said  he, 
"that  the  War  Department  is  only  an  emer 
gency  bureau,  and  that  the  controlling  port 
folio  in  the  present  administration  is  held 
by  the  Secretary  of  Peace,  Theodore  Roose 
velt." 

It  was  only  a  few  weeks  later  that  Mr.  Roose 
velt  at  a  public  dinner  in  Charlottesville, 
Virginia,  set  forth  his  own  views  of  the 
proper  attitude  of  the  United  States  in  its 
foreign  relations. 


262    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

"I  want  the  United  States  to  conduct  itself 
in  foreign  affairs,"  said  he,  "as  you  of  Vir 
ginia  believe  a  private  gentleman  should  con^ 
duct  himself  among  his  fellows.  I  ask  that  we 
handle  ourselves  with  a  view  never  to  wrong 
the  weak  and  never  to  submit  to  injury  from 
the  strong. 

"Another  thing :  A  gentleman  does  not  boast, 
bluster,  bully;  he  does  not  insult  others.  I 
wish  our  country  always  to  behave  with  con 
sideration  for  others  ;  never  to  speak  in  a  man 
ner  that  is  insulting  or  might  wound  the  sus 
ceptibilities  of  any  foreign  nation;  never  to 
threaten,  never  to  boast,  but  when  we  feel  that 
our  interest  and  our  honour  demand  that  as  a 
nation  we  take  a  certain  position,  to  take  that 
position  and  then  make  it  good. 

"Speaking  to  the  younger  gentlemen  pres 
ent,  I  wish  to  state  that  I  myself  was  once 
young,  and  in  those  days  I  lived  in  the  cow 
country  in  the  West,  and  we  had  a  proverb 
running,  'Don't  draw  unless  you  mean  to 
shoot.'  It  was  a  middling  good  proverb,  and 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  263 

it  applies  just  as  much  in  international  as  in 
private  affairs. 

"I  do  not  wish  us  ever  as  a  nation  to  take  a 
position  from  which  we  have  to  retreat.  Do 
not  let  us  assume  any  position  unless  we  are 
prepared  to  say  that  we  have  got  to  keep  it. 
As  a  nation  we  must  hereafter  play  a  big  part 
in  the  world.  It  is  not  open  to  us  to  decide 
whether  the  part  we  play,  we  of  the  United 
States,  shall  be  great  or  small.  That  has  been 
decided  for  us  by  the  course  of  events.  A 
small  nation  can  honourably  play  a  small 
part ;  a  great  nation,  no.  A  great  nation 
must  play  a  great  part.  All  it  can  decide  is 
whether  it  will  play  that  great  part  well  or 
ill.  I  know  you  too  well,  my  fellow-country 
men,  to  have  any  doubt  as  to  what  your  de 
cision  will  be." 

We  have  the  testimony  of  his  Attorney-Gen 
eral,  as  well  as  that  of  his  Secretary  of  War, 
that  the  policies  of  his  administration  are  the 
policies  of  Theodore  Roosevelt,  adopted  of 
course  after  consultation  with  his  advisers  and 


264    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

cordially  supported  and  furthered  by  those 
associated  with  him  in  their  execution.  It  was 
in  explanation  of  his  retirement  from  the 
Cabinet  to  accept  the  senatorship  from  Penn 
sylvania  that  Attorney-General  Knox  said  in 
the  summer  of  1904 : 

"I  called  up  President  Roosevelt  over  the 
long-distance  telephone  and  laid  the  situa 
tion  before  him,  asking  his  advice.  The  Presi 
dent,  after  listening  to  me,  said  that  as  Penn 
sylvania  is  such  an  overwhelmingly  Repub 
lican  State,  and  as  this  appointment  might 
open  to  me  a  long  term  of  public  service  and 
at  the  same  time  it  would  tend  to  promote  har 
mony  among  the  factions  of  the  party  in  the 
State,  he  thought  it  was  my  duty  to  accept 
the  appointment." 

"But  don't  you  believe  that  your  leaving  the 
Cabinet  at  this  time  will  seriously  interfere 
with  President  Roosevelt's  plans  for  curbing 
the  trusts?"  Mr.  Knox  was  asked. 

"I  do  not,"  was  the  reply.  "My  leaving  the 
Cabinet  can  have  no  effect  upon  the  continu- 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  265 

ance  of  the  anti-trust  policy  of  the  adminis 
tration." 

Mr.  Roosevelt's  attitude  toward  his  nomina 
tion  for  the  Presidency  and  his  remarks  on 
that  subject  were  as  unconventional  as  many 
of  his  other  acts.  In  May,  1903,  when  the 
party  in  Ohio  was  divided  on  the  question  of 
indorsing  him,  and  Senator  Hanna  was  urging 
that  the  indorsement  could  as  well  be  given 
the  next  year,  Mr.  Roosevelt's  secretary  issued 
this  statement : 

"In  speaking  of  the  sudden  political  devel 
opments  in  Ohio  the  President  this  afternoon 
said:  'I  have  not  asked  any  man  for  his  sup 
port.  I  have  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
raising  the  issue  of  my  indorsement.  Sooner 
or  later  it  was  bound  to  arise,  and  inasmuch 
as  it  has  now  arisen,  of  course  those  who 
favour  my  administration  and  my  nomination 
will  indorse,  and  those  who  do  not,  oppose.'  ' 

He  has  not  been  ashamed  of  his  ambitions, 
neither  has  he  hesitated  to  express  a  high  opin 
ion  of  the  dignity  of  public  service.  The  last 


266    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

sentences  from  an  address  delivered  to  the 
students  of  the  University  of  California  bear 
on  this  subject.  He  was  talking  about  the 
service  that  Leonard  Wood,  William  H.  Taft, 
the  graduates  of  the  Naval  and  Military 
academies,  and  others  had  done. 

"Taft  and  Wood  and  their  fellows,"  said  he, 
"are  spending,  or  have  spent,  the  best  years 
of  their  prime  in  doing  a  work  which  means 
to  them  a  pecuniary  loss  at  the  best,  a  bare 
livelihood  while  they  are  doing  it,  and  are  do 
ing  it  gladly  because  they  realise  the  truth 
that  the  highest  privilege  that  can  be  given 
to  any  man  is  the  privilege  of  serving  his 
country,  his  fellow- Americans." 

When  his  party  nominated  him  for  the  Presi 
dency  in  the  summer  of  1904  all  precedents 
were  broken.  No  previous  President  who  had 
entered  the  high  office  through  the  Vice-Presi 
dency  after  the  death  of  the  President  was 
ever  before  nominated  to  succeed  himself.  In 
deed,  Mr.  Roosevelt's  first  participation  in 
a  national  convention  was  marked  by  his  ear- 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  267 

nest  efforts  to  prevent  such  a  President  from 
receiving  the  nomination.  But  when  he  be 
came  a  candidate,  no  one  was  named  in  oppo 
sition  to  him  in  the  convention,  and  he  was  the 
unanimous  choice  of  the  delegates. 

He  took  no  public  part  in  the  campaign  for 
his  election,  till  toward  its  close,  when  charges 
affecting  his  personal  honour  were  made. 
Then  he  issued  a  long  statement,  in  the  course 
of  which  he  declared  that  the  charges  that  he 
or  his  campaign  committee  were  blackmailing 
corporations  and  were  promising  "to  take 
care  of"  the  corporations  which  contributed  to 
the  fund  to  secure  his  election  were  "unquali 
fiedly  and  atrociously  false,"  and  concluded: 
"If  elected  I  shall  go  into  the  Presidency 
unhampered  by  any  pledge,  promise,  or  under 
standing  of  any  kind,  sort,  or  description,  save 
my  promise,  made  openly  to  the  American 
people,  that  so  far  as  in  my  power  lies  I  shall 
see  to  it  that  every  man  has  a  square  deal,  no 
less  and  no  more." 

Several  weeks  before   election    a  prominent 


268    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

Republican  leader  who  believed  that  he  would 
win  implored  him  not  to  commit  himself 
against  the  acceptance  of  a  third  term  until 
the  arguments  in  its  favour  could  be  presented. 
Mr.  Roosevelt,  turning  to  Attorney-General 
Moody,  who  was  present,  remarked: 

"I  cannot  with  propriety  make  any  public 
statement  now,  before  I  am  elected  for  a 
second  term,  but  at  the  very  earliest  moment  I 
shall  smash  that  idea  with  all  the  energy  I 
can  command." 

Secretary  Moody  indorsed  this  plan,  and 
Mr.  Roosevelt  did  not  wait  longer  than  was 
necessary  to  "smash  the  idea"  that  he  was  a 
candidate  for  nomination  in  1908,  for  at  half- 
past  ten  o'clock  on  the  night  of  the  election, 
when  the  result  was  no  longer  in  doubt,  he 
issued  this  statement: 

"I  am  deeply  sensible  of  the  honour  done  me 
by  the  American  people  in  thus  expressing 
their  confidence  in  what  I  have  done  and  have 
tried  to  do.  I  appreciate  to  the  full  the  solemn 
responsibility  this  confidence  imposes  upon  me, 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  269 

and  I  shall  do  all  that  in  my  power  lies  not  to 
forfeit  it.  On  the  4th  of  March  next  I  shall 
have  served  three  and  a  half  years,  and  this 
three  and  a  half  years  constitute  my  first 
term.  The  wise  custom  which  limits  the  Presi 
dent  to  two  terms  regards  the  substance  and 
not  the  form,  and  under  no  circumstances  will 
I  be  a  candidate  for,  or  accept,  another  nomi 
nation." 

He  received  the  largest  popular  majority 
ever  given  to  any  candidate,  and  even  carried 
Missouri,  which  had  been  Democratic  for  more 
than  thirty  years.  He  was  pleased,  as  well 
he  might  be,  though  he  was  not  surprised. 
They  say  that  he  was  one  of  the  calmest  per 
sons  in  the  White  House  on  the  evening  of  the 
election  while  the  returns  were  coming  in. 

A  little  more  than  two  weeks  after  the  elec 
tion  he  visited  the  Louisiana  Purchase  Exposi 
tion  in  St.  Louis,  making  several  brief 
speeches  on  the  way.  A  large  crowd  gathered 
to  greet  him  as  he  passed  through  Indian 
apolis.  He  thanked  them  for  their  presence 


270    THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 
and  said  he  appreciated  it  deeply.     Then  an 
enthusiastic   man   in  the   crowd,   desiring  to 
attract  attention  to  the  large  Roosevelt  ma 
jority  in  Ohio,  called  out: 

"What  is  the  matter  with  Ohio?" 

"Not  a  thing,"  said  the  President,  "and  I 
want  to  tell  you  that  there  were  a  lot  of  other 
good  ones."  Then  with  a  beaming  smile  he 
leaned  over  the  rail  on  the  car  platform  and 
inquired,  "What  is  the  matter  with  Missouri?" 

And  the  crowd  yelled  its  appreciation  of  the 
situation.  When  he  reached  St.  Louis  a  din 
ner  in  his  honour  was  given  by  the  officers  of 
the  fair,  at  which  he  said: 

"I  was  lately  reading  a  speech  of  Lincoln 
after  his  re-election.  I  cannot  quote  it  verba 
tim,  but  he  says,  'As  long  as  I  have  been  in  this 
office  I  have  never  intentionally  planted  a 
thorn  in  any  man's  bosom.  I  am  gratified  that 
my  countrymen  have  seen  fit  to  continue  me  in 
office,  but  it  does  not  satisfy  me  that  any  one 
has  suffered  by  the  result.'  I  feel  that  I  should 
approach  my  duties  in  that  spirit.  A  man 


THE  POLITICAL  MAN  271 

should  have  no  sense  of  elation  in  view  of  the 
infinite  responsibility  and  of  the  weight  of 
duty  he  owes  to  his  fellow-citizens.  He  should 
realise  that  whether  there  is  a  difference  before 
election,  the  President  is  President  of  all  the 
people,  of  every  section,  socially  and  indus 
trially — no  West,  no  North,  or  East,  or  South 
— and  he  is  bound  'with  malice  toward  none 
and  charity  to  all'  to  strive  to  conduct  him 
self  toward  his  duties  as  they  arise  ,so  that 
the  result  may  be  for  the  good  of  the  common 
country." 

In  spite  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  announced  deter 
mination  not  to  accept  another  nomination  for 
the  Presidency,  many  men  with  various  motives 
have  declared  themselves  in  favour  of  what 
they  call  a  third  term  for  him.  But  his  atti 
tude  remains  unchanged.  In  the  spring  of 
1906  he  was  present  at  a  dinner  at  which  one 
half  the  guests  were  men  whose  availability 
for  the  Presidency  had  been  discussed  by  the 
political  leaders.  He  said  to  them: 

"I  shall  not  be  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency 


272     THE  MANY-SIDED  ROOSEVELT 

again,  but  I'll  be  delighted  to  accept  a  place 
in  the  Cabinet  of  any  of  you." 

Mr.  W.  A.  Conant,  of  Colorado  Springs, 
Colorado,  who  was  a  delegate  to  the  first  Re 
publican  National  Convention,  wrote  to  him 
in  June,  1906,  that  he  hoped  to  vote  for  him 
in  1908.  Mr.  Roosevelt's  secretary  replied : 

"The  President  thanks  you  for  your  letter  of 
the  17th  instant.  He  cordially  appreciates 
your  kind  expressions  concerning  himself.  He 
says,  however,  that  you  will  have  to  vote  for 
some  other  Republican  next  time." 


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